Twenty-five doctoral students from the University of British Columbia have been awarded the 2010 Vanier Canada Scholarships, the Canadian equivalent of the Rhodes scholarships in the U.K. and the Fulbright scholarships in the U.S.
UBC has the second highest number of scholars, after the University of Toronto. Last year, 17 UBC students were among the 166 inaugural Vanier scholars.
This year, scholarships were awarded to 174 doctoral students at universities across Canada. The winners will receive $50,000 a year for up to three years to support their graduate studies. The 2010 cohort of recipients were recently announced by Minister of Industry Tony Clement, in Ottawa.
“Graduate students play a vital role in the research and teaching enterprise here at UBC and around the world,” says UBC President Stephen Toope. “UBC attracts graduate students who are innovative and driven to create new knowledge to improve our quality of life, while providing important economic and social benefits.”
UBC’s Vanier Scholars come from Canada, Iran, Colombia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel and France. They are pursuing research in a wide range of areas including human rights, mental health, chemical engineering, artificial intelligence and genomics.
When at full capacity, the Vanier Canada Scholarships program will support up to 500 doctoral students from Canada and abroad annually. The program is administered by Canada’s three research granting councils: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Nominees were recommended by Canadian universities and evaluated and selected by a board of internationally recognized experts that includes former UBC President Martha Piper and Bombardier board chair Laurent Beaudoin. UBC physicist Carl Wiemen and Victor Ling, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UBC, were also on the selection committee.
UBC’s 2010 Vanier Scholars and their fields of research include:
- Chanson Brumme – Genomics, Proteomics, and Bioinformatics
- Thomas Harrison – Mental Health
- Alon Hendel – Cardiovascular
- Chelsea Himsworth – Population Health
- Azadeh Hosseini-Tabatabaei – Metabolism/Diabetes
- Olga Pena – Immunology-Transplantation
- Katrina Stukas – Aging
- Kelsie Thu – Cancer
- Roee Diamant – Communications networks
- David Duvenaud – Artificial Intelligence
- Elliot Holtham – Geophysics
- Lee Kalcsits – Plant and Tree Biology
- Heather Mann – Psychology
- Mohammad Sadegh Masnadi-Shirazi – Chemical Engineering
- Ehsan Mohammadi Zahrani – Materials Science and Technology
- Shaun Strohm – Applied Mathematics
- Aubin Calvert – Political Thought and Political Theory
- Robert Diab – Human Rights
- Brenda Fitzpatrick – Anthropology of Modern Societies
- Agustin Goenaga Orrego – Comparative Politics
- Juliane Jones – Ethnomusicology
- Asad Kiyani – International Law
- Sarah Klain – Environment
- Sara Komarnisky – Cultural Anthropology
- Graham Lea – Education