UBC This Week | Apr. 9, 2009

Apr 9, 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

Staff members receive President’s Service Award for Excellence

Five members of the university community are being recognized for outstanding contributions to campus life and for personal achievements. They will receive the 2009 President’s Service Award for Excellence (PSAE), the top award presented to staff in recognition of excellence and contributions to the vision and goals of the University.
This year’s winners are:

  • John Sacre, Capital Program & Maintenance Manager, Land and Building Services
  • Kersti Krug, Assistant Principal, Strategic Development and Administration, College for Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Laura-Lynn Lowry, Senior Food Service Assistant, Food Services
  • Alan Owen Steeves, Computer and Electronics Manager, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
  • Bernice Urbaniak, Administrative Manager, School of Human Kinetics and President, AAPS

Each recipient will receive the award in a presentation during Spring Congregation Ceremonies. For more information on the award, visit: http://www.ceremonies.ubc.ca/ceremonies/honours/index.html#staff_service.

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UBC Film Production alumni and students nominated in 2009 Leo Awards

The Leo Awards announced their 2009 nominations with 29 given to UBC Film Production students, alumni and adjunct professors. The UBC nominees were recognized in Best Student Film, Best Documentary to Best Feature Length Drama and Best Screenwriting in Short Drama categories. The Leo Awards recognize excellence in BC film and television.

The 23 students nominated include MFA Film graduate Peg Campbell and her thesis film Your Mother Should Know, nominated for Best Documentary and Best Screenwriting in a Documentary Program and Series, and BFA graduate Shaun McKinlay’s UBC film The Escape of Conrad Lard-Bottom is nominated in the Best Student Film category.

The winners will be announced at the Celebration and Gala Awards at the Westin Bayshore on May 8 and 9.

For a complete list of the nominees, visit: http://www.leoawards.com/nominees_2009.html

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UBC Press named publisher of the year

UBC Press has been named the 2009 James Douglas Publisher of the Year by the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia. Under the leadership of director Peter Milroy, UBC Press has built strong relationships with Canadian scholars focusing on political science, native studies, Canadian history, environmental studies, law, Asian studies and anthropology.

For more information, visit http://www.publishers.ca/acp_update_2009_03_13.htm#Peter_Milroy_wins_James_Douglas.

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MIT candidate joins School of Journalism

Candis Callison, a doctoral candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will join the UBC Graduate School of Journalism as assistant professor beginning June 1.

A former journalist from CBC, CTV and APTN, Callison is completing her dissertation and will teach courses including Science Journalism, New Media and Society at the undergraduate level, Press and Society and iJournalism.

For more details, visit http://www.journalism.ubc.ca/news/item/eco_expert_from_mit_joins_j-school/ .

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UBC researchers join inaugural Junior Fellow Academy

UBC researchers will join the first cohort of Junior Fellows in Toronto for the inaugural meeting of the Junior Fellow Academy on April 14. The meeting marks the beginning of an initiative by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) to identify and foster gifted young researchers.

CIFAR’s Junior Fellow Academy offers young researchers who have recently earned their PhDs a two-year postdoctoral fellowship and membership in one of CIFAR’s 12 research programs. The Junior Fellows will work closely with some of the top investigators in their fields.

The CIFAR Junior Fellows from UBC are:

  • Chris Barrington-Leigh works under the supervision of CIFAR’s Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being Fellow and Co-Director John Helliwell, professor emeritus at UBC Dept. of Economics. His research focuses on furthering the quantitative understanding of the social and economic determinants of life satisfaction.
  • Jelena Obradovic is the Great-West Life Junior Fellow of CIFAR, working under the supervision of Experience-based Brain and Biological Development Fellow and co-director Tom Boyce at the UBC Human Early Learning Partnership at. Obradovic’s research studies how children’s self-regulatory abilities and stress reactivity enable some socio-economically disadvantaged children to demonstrate resilience, while placing others at risk for maladaptive outcomes.
  • Ion Garate will begin his CIFAR Junior Fellowship in the fall of 2009, under the co-supervision of Quantum Materials Fellows Ian Affleck and Marcel Franz in the UBC Dept. of Physics and Astronomy. Garate is working to advance the theoretical understanding of magnetism and superconductivity, manifestations of the quantum physics governing the behaviour of electrons in solids.

For more information, visit www.cifar.ca or contact Alison Palmer at apalmer@cifar.ca.

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UBC Animal Welfare Program awarded funding for dairy cattle research

The UBC Animal Welfare Program has gained $1 million from an Industrial Research Chair (IRC) award jointly funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and dairy farming organizations.

Prof. Dan Weary, Assoc. Prof. Marina von Keyserlingk and Prof. David Fraser will apply the five-year NSERC IRC award to two main areas of dairy cattle welfare research. They are dietary and management transitions – including weaning and onset of lactation – and preventing illness through improvements in management and facility design. The research will take place at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems’ world-class Dairy Education and Research Centre in Agassiz, B.C.

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UBC professor honoured for community-based research

Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl of UBC Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education has received the Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award. Presented annually by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC (CUFA BC), Schonert-Reichl is recognized for her more than two decades of work in finding ways to promote positive, emotional and social growth in young people.

For more information, visit http://www.cufa.bc.ca/.

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UBC students score high in international math competition

Cedric Lin was UBC’s high scorer in the international Putnam Math Competition for the third year in a row, placing 13th out of 3,627 participants. Other high scorers from UBC included Farzin Barekat, whose top-50 ranking earned an honourable mention, and Stanley Xiao, who placed in the top 120.

Overall, UBC placed eight students in the top 500.

For more information, visit www.math.ubc.ca/Dept/Awards/#PUTNAM08.

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Irving K. Barber Learning Centre open 24 hours during exams

In response to feedback from students, staff and faculty, most of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre building will be open 24 hours a day for the upcoming final exam period from April 14-30. This marks the first time a UBC Vancouver learning facility will remain open 24 hours for seven days.

All study areas and classrooms except the Chapman Learning Commons, Ike’s Café and UBC Library divisions (Art, Architecture and Planning, Science and Engineering, Rare Books and Special Collections, University Archives, the circulation desk on level two) will remain open during extended hours.

For more information, visit http://toby.library.ubc.ca/news/librarydetail.cfm?id=373.

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UBC Health Promotion Program offers free monthly seminars

The Dept. of Health, Safety and Environment will be giving free monthly seminars as part of their Health Promotion Program initiative for the UBC community.

April 22: Developing Personal Resilience – developing and maintaining resilience in coping with pressure

May 13: Sleep and Restfulness – the effects of sleep deprivation and lack of rest with tips and strategies

May 30 – Stress and Resiliency: Bending and Bouncing Back – the effects of stress on physical and psychological health and how to achieve greater balance and focus in personal and work lives

To register, visit Health Promotion Programs Online Registration.

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Engineering Co-op invites summer hires

UBC Engineering Co-op invites employers needing assistance to hire students for short or long-term projects. Students can help with creative solutions ranging from fabricating devices to developing new software programs. Beginning May, engineering co-op students are available for four to eight months.

For job postings and more information, contact eng.coop@ubc.ca or 604-822-3022, or visit www.ubcengineeringcoop.com.