Waterloo

Waterloo
Location: Waterloo, ON
Current President or Coach	Mattias Ehatamm
National championships	2023 DII ICT, 2024 DII ICT
NAQT Page	link

The University of Waterloo is a university in Waterloo, ON with strong math and engineering programs. A quizbowl club has been in existence since the mid-1990s.

Early history

The Waterloo Quiz Bowl Club was established at some point in the mid-1990s, hosting and participating in several tournaments during the early years of Canadian university quizbowl. Zhan Huan Zhou and Rico Catibog ran the club in the early years. A Waterloo team attended the 2000 ICT.

Dormant period

After 2001, the team became inactive on the circuit, but continued to exist as a club.

Modern history (2008-Present)

Recently, Waterloo has re-emerged as an actual Quizbowl Club, due in no small part to Eric Monkman, who attended Waterloo as a freshman in 2006-07. Since the Fall of 2008, the club has been led each term by either Jeffrey Baer, Aaron Dos Remedios or Monkman himself. This has led to an attempt to get the university involved in more traditional Quizbowl events, mainly through the Canadian Quizbowl circuit.

Typically, the club is made up almost entirely of mathematics or engineering students. This has generally led to Waterloo teams being weak in areas such as history and linguistics. Exceptions to this include Rebecca Heersink, Sean Nauth and perhaps Monkman himself (a mathematical physicist), but non-mathematicians/engineers in the Waterloo Quizbowl club are few and far between.

In 2023, the Waterloo team of Michael Du, Mattias Ehatamm, Liam Kusalik, and Gaian Valdegamo became the first Canadian team to win the DII ICT, beating Rutgers B 400-380 in the second game of an advantaged final. After going undefeated in their prelim bracket, the Waterloo team had lunch at Panda Express, where Michael received a fortune cookie stating "soon you will get the recognition you deserve."

In 2024, Waterloo became the first school ever to defend a Division II title, with James Ah Yong, Micah Colman, Jared He, and Caleb Ott defeating Columbia A in the first game of an advantaged final. Two weeks later, Waterloo became the first Canadian school to win an Undergraduate trophy at ACF Nationals, with Du, Ehatamm, He, and Kusalik finishing in 2nd after losing a final to Cornell. Their T4 finish is also the highest a Canadian team has placed at ACF Nationals.

Modern Tournament Involvement

Waterloo competed for the first time since 2001 at Ontario Bowl in October, 2007; the team finished in the middle of the pack. In 2009, Waterloo, along with nearby Wilfrid Laurier University, hosted the Canada SCT.

The following is a list of tournaments in which Waterloo participated in its modern era:

• Ontario Bowl 2007
• TRASH Regionals 2007
• TRASH Regionals 2008
• NAQT Sectionals 2008
• NAQT Sectionals 2009
• Ottawa Hybrid 2008
• Ottawa Hybrid 2009
• ACF Fall 2008
• VETO 2009

Members

Present:

• Mattias Ehatamm
• Liam Kusalik
• Leo Ortega
• Miriam Tam
• Gaian Valdegamo
• Jared He
• Thomas Mennill
• Jared Cubilla
• Michael Du
• Caleb Ott
• Micah Colman
• Jacob Bicol
• Ahmed Abbas
• James Ah Yong
• Caitlyn Morgenstern
• Cendikiawan Suryaatmadja
• Artur Von Dem Hagen
• Matthew Woodward

Past:

• Zachary Bernstein
• Christine Irwin
• Jj Li
• Peter Liu
• Cam MacInnis
• Ben Paul
• Aayush Rajasekaran
• Daniel Resnick
• Arjun Sondhi
• Kira Vimal
• Ming-Ho Yee
• Andrew Yim
• Matt Austin
• Jeffrey Baer
• Elite Che
• Jamie Cooper
• Dmitry Denisenkov
• Aaron Dos Remedios
• Eric Monkman

NAQT ICT Division II Champion
Preceded by	Year	Succeeded by
Yale	2023	TBD