UBC This Week

Nominations are open for the 2010 UBC Vancouver President’s Staff Awards and the 2010 UBC Okanagan Staff Awards of Excellence.  As part of UBC’s Focus on People framework, these awards recognize the achievements and contributions of staff to UBC and to the vision and goals of the University.  Nominations are sought in various award categories, including leadership, sustainability, community involvement, and customer service.

Nomination deadline for UBC Vancouver nominees is May 31. Nomination deadline for UBC Okanagan nominees is June 1.

For more information (and to download a nomination package) on the UBC Vancouver President’s Staff Awards, visit http://www.ceremonies.ubc.ca/ceremonies/honours/index.html

For more information (and to download a nomination package) on the UBC Okanagan Staff Awards of Excellence, visit http://web.ubc.ca/okanagan/facultystaff/current-staff/excellence.html

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UBC Prof. Carolyn Gotay, School of Population and Public Health and Canadian Cancer Society Chair in Cancer Primary Prevention, will receive $583,111 over three years from the Canadian Cancer Society for a workplace cancer prevention study. Her research team will study the effect of three health promotion strategies delivered in the workplace and their impact on employees’ health, work and lifestyle habits with the goal of ultimately impacting the onset of cancer.

Gotay is one of 13 cancer researchers in B.C. to receive grants totaling more than $5 million from the Canadian Cancer Society.

For more information, visit http://www.cancer.ca/British%20Columbia-Yukon/Cancer%20research/BC-Provincial%20highlights/2009%20research%20grants.aspx?sc_lang=en

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Faculty, staff and students were honoured with the 2009/2010 Faculty of Science Achievement Awards in recognition of their exceptional service contributions.  This year’s recipients include four representatives from the Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, and six from computation sciences.

For a complete list of winners, visit www.science.ubc.ca/faculty/awards/achievement.

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Four engineering professors each received teaching honours from students in the UBC School of Engineering at the Okanagan campus.

Mechanical engineering instructor Yang Cao received the Pioneer’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes the efforts of an outstanding professor who taught in a lecture, lab or tutorial section in first or second year.

This year also marks the graduation of the school’s first cohort of students, who began their studies in 2005. The Class of 2010 established the Grad Gala Teaching Excellence Awards in which the class polled and voted for a top professor in each discipline.  The winners are: Asst. Prof.Jonathan Holzman, Dept. of Electrical Engineering; Asst.  Prof. Homayoun Najjaran, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and Asst. Prof. Ahmad Rteil, Dept. of Civil Engineering.

For more information, visit www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2010/may11.html

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Two students in the School of Population and Public Health’s Master of Public Health program were awarded this week for their academic achievements. 
 
UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies awarded Miranda Kelly a 12-month Aboriginal Graduate Fellowship for the academic year 2010/2011. She will receive a $10,000 Pacific Century Graduate Scholarship, a $7,000 Aboriginal Graduate Fellowship and tuition.
 
For more information, visit http://www.spph.ubc.ca/?p2=modules/blog/viewcomments.jsp&bid=67

Christine Soon will receive an award from the Justice Emmett Hall Memorial Foundation’s 2010 Student Essay Competition at next week’s Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research conference. The Justice Emmett Hall Memorial Foundation awards three prizes annually for the best student essay submissions addressing any topic in health services or health policy. Soon’s paper, Remuneration of Primary Care Physicians-Steps towards Reform, won for the Masters level.

For more information, visit http://www.spph.ubc.ca/?p2=modules/blog/viewcomments.jsp&bid=66

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From May 17-21, forestry education leaders from China, Canada and around the world will be at UBC to discuss the issues, opportunities and problems facing post-secondary forestry education.

The conference, bringing representatives from 45 universities, 12 countries and five continents, will illustrate how education can be a tool for creating international cooperation. 

The university community is invited to attend the opening ceremonies held on May 18 at 8:30 a.m.

For more information or to register, visit  www.forestry.ubc.ca/isfe

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Two new exhibitions are on display at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

Beyond the Words features portraits of writers by the late Carl Kohler (1919-2006), a Neo-Modernist/Abstract Swedish artist. Subjects including Franz Kafka, Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Günter Grass are featured in mediums such as oil painting, woodblock prints and drawings.

Generation One exhibition features work from local artists including Raymond Chow, Ron Sombilon, Ray Shum and Rubina Rajan. This show coincides with explorASIAN, the annual Vancouver Asian Heritage Festival.

Beyond the Words runs until August 31, and Generation One runs until May 31. Both shows are in the Learning Centre Gallery, located on the second floor of the Learning Centre adjacent to the circulation desk.

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UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) division will display an exhibit in conjunction with the release of a new book on children’s literature.

The exhibition Picturing Canada: Canadian Children’s Illustrated Books and Publishing, highlights Canadian picture books from the last 200 years and includes rare children’s books as well as popular productions from recent years. It was curated by Shannon Ozirny, Meaghan Scanlon and Geneviève Valleau, students at UBC’s School of Library, Archival and Information Studies.

The exhibition also features highlights from Picturing Canada: A History of Canadian Children’s Illustrated Books and Publishing, written by Judith Saltman and Gail Edwards. Saltman is an associate professor at UBC’s School of Library, Archival and Information Studies and Chair of the Master of Arts in Children’s Literature program; Edwards is the Chair of the Dept. of History at Douglas College.

The exhibition, runs until August 31 at RBSC, located on level one of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

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All Science Challenge, a day-long science competition held at UBC this week, pits more than 200 Grade 6 and 7 students from across the Greater Vancouver Regional District against one another in a quiz show-style battle of wits.

The event, delivered by Canada’s national Let’s Talk Science program and UBC student volunteers, also features hands-on competitions that include bridge building, Morse code challenges, and electric circuit design.

For more information, visit www.science.ubc.ca/news/392

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