News

Professor Mehrdad Pirnia was recently featured in an interview on CBC Radio’s The Morning Edition – K-W. In the segment, Professor Pirnia discussed the promising future of short-range electric aircraft, including new research and battery testing that could make regional electric flights a reality sooner than expected.

A paper co-authored by Management Science and Engineering professor Lukasz Golab and his Data Science Master’s student Anastasiia Avksientieva won the best demo paper award at the 2025 International Conference on Extending Data Base Technology (EDBT).  This paper proposed a new data-driven method to assess bias in machine learning models.  A model is explicitly biased if it is more accurate for some subgroups than others.  For example, a biased healthcare model might generate more accurate diagnoses for younger or older individuals.  However, even an explicitly unbiased model may be implicitly biased if it is harder for some subgroups to flip the model's decision to a favourable one.  For example, what if married individuals whose loan applications were rejected would only need to increase their incomes by an average of ten percent to be approved, but single individuals would need 20 percent higher salaries?  In their paper, Golab and co-authors present a software tool that identifies implicit bias in prediction models, toward responsible deployment of AI models in practice.

The Waterloo Chapter of the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE), which is led by management engineering students, won several prizes at the most recent IISE Regional Student Conference hosted by Laval University in Quebec City. These included first prize in the technical paper competition, first prize in the Capsize competition, and third prize in the simulation competition.

Prof. Mahmoudzadeh was a recipient of the Faculty of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award. She was recognized for her exceptional dedication to student learning and pedagogical innovation. 

The Department of Management Science and Engineering recently gathered to celebrate the remarkable career and well-deserved retirement of Professor James Bookbinder. Throughout his distinguished career, Prof. Bookbinder has made extraordinary contributions to the field of operational research and transportation logistics, leaving an indelible mark on both academia and industry.

As the founding Executive Director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) and an esteemed faculty member at the University of Waterloo, Prof. Nathwani has dedicated his professional life to shaping the future of sustainable energy.

Dr. James Bookbinder was the recipient of the 2024 Award of Merit from the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS).

CORS brings together operational research professionals with annual conferences held across Canada, special interest groups, traveling speaker programs and student support. The Award of Merit is presented annually to a current or past member of CORS in recognition of significant contributions to the profession of operational research.

A team of Management Engineering students won first place in Canadian Operational Research Society’s (CORS) Undergraduate Student Paper Competition. Claudia De Fazio, Anika Gapczynski, Chloe Pilon, Kayley Brash, Michaela Trevisan received the award for their paper titled, “Inventory Slotting Optimization for Stable Palletization in Distribution Centres”. The team’s winning entry was drawn from their final-year Capstone project and focuses on increasing the efficiency of the palletization process. 

Claudia De Fazio (BASc 24’, management engineering) was awarded second place in the Undergraduate Technical Paper competition at the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) annual conference.

The competition highlights outstanding technical papers written by undergraduate students.

The Department of Management Science and Engineering was one of three finalists for the 2024 INFORMS UPS George D. Smith Prize. Dr. Sibel Alumur Alev, Claudia De Fazio (BASc management engineering), Dr. Mark Hancock and Dr. Ada Hurst showcased their department and programs at the 2024 INFORMS Analytics Conference in Orlando, Florida.