David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

The Cheriton School of Computer Science is named for David R. Cheriton, who earned his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in 1978. In 2005, Professor Cheriton made a transformational gift to the school that supports named chairs, faculty fellowships, and graduate scholarships.

Discover our latest achievements by following our news. Upcoming talks on a range of computer science topics are found under events.
 
Please go to contact, open positions or visit if you have a question about school programs or services, would like to know more about faculty positions available or plan to visit our school.

News

Professor Xiao Hu in the Davis Centre
Thursday, May 1, 2025

Xiao Hu and colleagues win Distinguished Paper Award at PODS 2025

Professor Xiao Hu, and her collaborators have received a Distinguished Paper Award at the 2025 ACM SIGMOD/PODS International Conference on Management of Data. 

Their paper, Fast Matrix Multiplication Meets the Submodular Width, introduces a new and unified framework for determining how efficiently any Boolean conjunctive query can be answered using fast matrix multiplication techniques.

A close-up of a tablet screen displaying Python code for data processing, with hand-drawn arrows and a sketch of a graph pointing where the bar graph should appear
Thursday, April 24, 2025

New AI system turns sketches into code

Instead of typing furiously and constantly hitting backspace, what if you could code by just drawing out your ideas?

This vision is becoming a reality thanks to Ryan Yen (MMath ’24), a recent master’s graduate of the Cheriton School of Computer Science, and Professors Jian Zhao and Daniel Vogel. While at Waterloo, Yen co-developed Code Shaping, an AI-powered software that allows programmers to edit their code through free-form sketches. ­

Read all news

Events