UBC This Week | June 11, 2009

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UBC This Week is a weekly summary of UBC people in the news, recent media releases and upcoming event highlights. UBC This Week past issues are also available on-line.

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Recent UBC Media Releases

Upcoming Event Highlights

Visit UBCevents, UBC’s new campus-wide calendar: www.events.ubc.ca

Find out what else is happening at UBC this week. For sports events, visit the UBC Athletics site at www.gothunderbirds.ca/schedule.asp.

UBC People


UBC People

Fisheries professor’s research cited in US Budget

UBC Fisheries Centre professor and director Rashid Sumaila ‘s study, Fish Economics:The Benefits of Rebuilding U.S. Ocean Fish Populations , is cited in the 2010 version of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Budget Blue Book. This document uses Sumaila’s work to support the conclusion that “implementing fishery rebuilding plans will likely result in increased net economic benefits for U.S. stocks that are currently overfished.”

For more information, visit www.cfis.ubc.ca .

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UBC’s Power Smart Leader designation renewed

UBC’s Power Smart Leader designation has been renewed for 2009. As part of BC Hydro’s Power Smart Excellence Awards program, UBC is recognized for its leadership and continuous commitment in energy conservation and efficiency among B.C.-based organizations.

The renewal is exemplified by UBC’s commitment to implementing large-scale infrastructure upgrade projects such as ECOTrek , launched in 2001, a project that involved rebuilding and retrofitting the infrastructure of nearly 300 academic buildings. Through a cost recovery method known as Energy Performance Contracting, ECOTrek saves 2.6 million dollars annually in utility costs and reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 11,000 tons per year.

For more information, visit http://www.sustain.ubc.ca/energy.html .

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UBC engineers receive ALS design competition awards

UBC engineers received awards at the ALS Society of B.C.’s Excellence in Engineering Design Competition:

  • Electrical and computer engineering MASc candidate Samuel Chua received the Principal Award and $5,000. Under the supervision of Prof. Philippe Kruchten , Chua created the Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) and the Intelligibility Enhancement System for Persons with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (PALS) with BiPAP assisted breathing.
  • The Award of Distinction was given to the Motorized ALS Neck Brace project, an interdisciplinary collaboration between supervisor Dr. Mike Van der Loos and students Eric Wen , Brad Neels , Anmy Ho, Sassan Nawabi Shirazi, Varun Rana Singh and Jay Liu , from UBC’s Mechatronics Capstone Design class. Their project focused on achieving support and mobility of the head and incorporating motorized assistance.
  • Electrical and computer engineering student Michael Neufeld received Honourable Mention for his Text to Speech Program, which combines components of a notebook computer and a Bluetooth speaker.

For more information, visit http://www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2009/jun4.html

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Electrical engineering professor wins research award

UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering Assoc. Prof. Lutz Lampe has been awarded the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award by the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation for his outstanding research record. As winner, Lampe will be invited to spend up to one year on a research project with specialist colleagues at a research institution in Germany.

For more information, visit http://www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2009/jun5.html

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Materials engineering professor elected Fellow

UBC Materials Engineering Prof. David Dreisinger has been elected Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) in recognition of more than 30 years of service to the CIM Metallurgical Society through his teaching, research, innovation and industrial support.

For more information, visit http://www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2009/may29.html

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Materials engineer first Canadian to win composite materials medal

UBC Materials Engineering Prof. Anoush Poursartip is the winner of the University of Delaware Center for Composite Materials’s 2009 Medal of Excellence in Composite Materials. He is the first Canadian to win this award. The medal is the highest international recognition in the field of composite materials.

For more information, visit http://www.mtrl.ubc.ca/news_&_events/article.php?page=/2009/06/anoush-poursartip-wins-2009-medal-of.html

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UBC team places third in design competition

A team of UBC mechanical engineering students placed third overall and second in the oral presentation category in the SAE Aero Design West international competition in Los Angeles. Fifty-four teams from across North America and abroad competed in this year’s competition.

The UBC Aero Design team, also known as the Heavy Lift team, designs, fabricates and flies a remote-controlled aircraft capable of lifting the heaviest payload possible while meeting various competition requirements.

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UBC Press publications win awards

UBC Press publications have received the following awards:

• The Canadian Sociology Association’s 2009 John Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award was granted to Canada’s Rights Revolution: Social Movements and Social Change , 1937-82 by Dominique Clément . This award is for publications that make a distinguished sociological contribution to the understanding of Canadian society.

• The Canadian Historical Association’s 2009 Clio Prize for British Columbia was granted to Makuk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations by John Sutton Lutz . C ontributing Citizens: Modern Charitable Fundraising and the Making of the Welfare State , 1920-66 by Shirley Tillotson was short listed for the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize.

• The winner of the Canadian Women’s Studies Association Book Prize was granted to Resisting Manchukuo: Chinese Women Writers and the Japanese Occupation by Norman Smith and Sexing the Teacher: School Sexual Scandals and Queer Pedagogies by Sheila Cavanaugh received an Honorable Mention.

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Special offer to UBC community: pre-purchase tickets for Women’s Hockey Canada Cup

The UBC community has an exclusive opportunity to pre-purchase tickets for the Hockey Canada Cup games before they go on sale to the general public on June 13.

The top four women’s hockey nations in the world — Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland — will compete at GM Place from Aug. 31 – Sept. 6.

To purchase tickets, visit http://www.ticketmaster.ca/search?tm_link=tm_header_search&q=hockey+canada+cup&search.x=17&search.y=10 (password: PREHCC).

For more information and to view the competition schedule, visit http://www.hockeycanada.ca/index.php/ci_id/59791/la_id/1.htm .

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Nobel Laureate gives lecture at UBC

Nobel Laureate, Dr. Yuan T. Lee will be giving a lecture at UBC entitled Challenges for Human Society in the 21st Century.

To view the webcast on June 18, visit http://www.michaelsmith.ubc.ca/video/ (username: mslvideo, password: sing4me2).

Date: June 18
Time: 3 – 4 p.m.
Place: Michael Smith Labs Theatre, 2185 East Mall
Info: http://www.arts.ubc.ca/students/newseventsprofiles/news-events-folder/events-single-news/article/37/lecture-by-nobel-laureate-dr-yuan-t-lee.html .