UBC This Week 29-March-2012

Prof. David Pulfrey, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, came to UBC in 1968 as a postdoctoral teaching fellow and is retiring after 43 years.

Named a Fellow of IEEE (2000) and the Canadian Academy of Engineering (2002), Pulfrey published over 130 refereed articles on semiconductor devices, ranging from solar cells to nanotransistors. The author of three books, Pulfrey notes his teaching awards received at the university, provincial and international levels as major highlights of his career.

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/H3O9Eu

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Universitas 21 (U21) is honouring Dr. Karen Gardner in the Faculty of Dentistry for enhancing international dialogue among dental students. Gardner is the recipient of the inaugural U21 Award for Internationalisation for creating diastemas.net, a website that allows students to share and compare cases across three continents. For more information, visit: http://tinyurl.com/cwj29ma

Dr. David Sweet, O.C., professor and associate dean of students, received the Honoured Member Award from the College of Dental Surgeons of BC. The College bestowed its highest award on Dr. Sweet for his remarkable contributions to dentistry on provincial, national and international levels. For more information, visit: http://www.dentistry.ubc.ca/News/2012/sweet_alumni_awards.asp

Dr. Ravindra M. Shah, who serves as the faculty’s director of international relations, was awarded an honorary doctorate of philosophy degree from Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan. The honorary degree recognizes Dr. Shah’s significant contributions and achievements in education and research through international academic exchanges. For more information, a video and photographs, visit: http://www.dentistry.ubc.ca/News/2011/shah_award.asp

Dr. Christopher Overall, professor and Canada Research Chair in Metalloproteinase Proteomics and Systems Biology, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the field of proteolysis from the International Proteolysis Society. He was recognized for inventing and developing the field of degradomics, which brings proteomics to the study of proteases.  For more information, visit: http://www.dentistry.ubc.ca/News/2012/overall_award.asp

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The Faculty of Education launched the UBC Alumni Teacher Award in 2012 to recognize exceptional achievement by UBC teacher education graduates. The award grants $1,000 to the winning teacher and an honorarium of $1,000 to the recipient’s school for enrichment activities, programs, or development.
 
Justin Borsato (BHK ‘99, BEd ‘00) was chosen from among 40 nominees as the 2012 UBC Alumni Teacher Award winner. Borsato’s contributions in his grade 7 classroom and beyond include chaperoning and fundraising for annual field trips across Canada, coaching and running the HEROS hockey program for underprivileged youth for the past seven years, and creating films with students to combat LGBT discrimination.

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Vancouver-based online consultation platform PlaceSpeak has launched a survey asking if city residents support the reintroduction of streetcars to neighbourhoods. Vancouver is exploring the use of streetcars as a key element of the transition to more sustainable transportation modes. PlaceSpeak has teamed up with Patrick Condon at UBC to gauge the public’s interest in restoring streetcars and associated amenities.

“Vancouver is slowly on track to meet our 2050 goals for reducing GHGs. We walk more, bike more, use transit more, and our cars less and less. But to make the next big leap requires us to think now about electrifying the transit system. It won’t help if we all use buses if those buses belch diesel fumes. Streetcars are one solution; and for many streets the cheapest one available. Our city grew with the streetcar. It might grow more sustainable with it again,” says Condon.
Find out more and take the short survey at www.placespeak.com/streetcarcity2050.

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UBC mathematics instructor Mark MacLean has been awarded the 2012 Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) Education Prize for his efforts in educational transformation, outreach and aboriginal engagement. For more information, visit: http://science.ubc.ca/news/608.

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The Pharmacists and Immunization Working Group (PIWG) is the winner of the third annual B.C. Quality Awards under the category of Staying Healthy.

PIWG members include Drs. Fawziah Marra and Glenda MacDonald of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC as well as representatives from the Ministry of Health, B.C. Pharmacy Association, College of Pharmacists of B.C., B.C. Centre for Disease Control, and other regional health authorities.

To read more, visit: http://www.pharmacy.ubc.ca/aboutus/faculty-news/2012-03-26

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Faculty of Applied Science’s Prof. Steve Wilton and Assoc. Prof. Guy Lemieux were recognized for their papers, two of 25 most significant written in the last twenty years on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). After a year-long process, the papers were announced at the 20th International Symposium on FPGA hosted by the Association for Computer Machinery.

For more information, visit http://www.ece.ubc.ca/news/201203/most-significant-papers-fpga

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Kaizen Biomedical, founded by UBC Engineering students Annelies Tjebbes (ECE), Neal O’Grady (MECH) and Mayank Kalra (MECH), and Sauder School of Business students Derek Li, Jennifer Vlasiu and Stephanie Wilson placed first at the Pacific Venture Capital Competition held March 24 in Vancouver. Their product, MobiChill, earned the team a $1,000 prize.

Developed through a partnership formed in APSC 486/New Venture Design, a course that connects senior engineering and business students, Kaizen’s main product, MobiChill, is a medical device used to induce therapeutic hypothermia in cardiac arrest patients—a medical treatment that reduces the risk of devastating side effects.

For more information, visit: http://bit.ly/GW6BBy

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Ten graduate students from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC are winners of awards supporting travel to academic conferences. To read more, visit: http://www.pharmacy.ubc.ca/aboutus/faculty-news/2012-03-23

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Wilson Fung, a PhD student in electrical and computer engineering working under the supervision of Asst. Prof. Tor Aamodt, has become the first Canadian student to win the NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship.

Selected as one of twelve PhD students from hundreds of applicants from three dozen countries, Fung has said of his research, “I am interested in anything that can improve computing power via architecture so as to enable new applications for computers. There are just too many interesting problems in computer architecture waiting to be solved.”

For more information, visit: http://bit.ly/H0ZHhi

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Two UBC Press books have been shortlisted for the 2012 John W. Dafoe Book Prize for non-fiction excellence about Canada, Canadians, and the Canadian nation in international affairs. Donica Belisle’s Retail Nation: Department Stores and the Making of Modern Canada and Timothy Wilford’s Canada’s Road to the Pacific War: Intelligence, Strategy, and the Far East Crisis were selected for the shortlist.

Belisle’s Retail Nation has also been honoured with the Pierre Savard Award from the International Council for Canadian Studies. The Pierre Savard Awards are designed to recognize and highlight outstanding scholarly monographs on a Canadian topic.

Three UBC Press books have been shortlisted for the 2012 Canadian Political History Book Prize: Bettina Bradbury’s Wife to Widow: Lives, Laws, and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Montreal, Janice Cavell and Jeff Noakes’ Acts of Occupation: Canada and Arctic Sovereignty, 1918-25, and John Price’s Orienting Canada: Race, Empire, and the Transpacific.

For more information, visit: http://www.ubcpress.ca/.

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Executive Chef Piyush Sahay and his culinary team from Wescadia Catering, UBC Food Services, have received the Catered Arts Through Innovative Excellence (CATIE) Best Main Course Plate award for their braised bison shortribs entrée. The CATIE award was presented by the International Caterers Association at the Catersource Annual Conference and Trade show.

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CityStudio will host an open house and dialogue with an exhibition of over 200 inter-disciplinary student projects in line with Vancouver’s Greenest City 2020 Goals. CityStudio is a collaboration between the City of Vancouver and six public post-secondary institutions that engage students incourses and projects that help Vancouver reach its Greenest City Goals. UBC students involved in the program and their network of partner courses will be showcasing their projects at the event.

Date: March 31
Time: 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Place: Salt Building, Olympic Village
Info: http://www.citystudiovancouver.com/. Free and open to the public.

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