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Dean Barbara Evans concludes appointment at Faculty of Graduate Studies, Assoc. Dean Susan Porter steps in as Dean pro tem

Effective April 1, 2011, Barbara Evans, dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FoGS), will conclude her appointment as dean and returning to her homeland, Australia. Many of her initiatives have contributed to the enhancement of the graduate student experience at UBC. 

Her accomplishments include:

  • Developing multi-year funding for doctoral students and increasing central merit-based graduate scholarship funds almost three-fold
  • Expanding professional development opportunities for graduate students through the Graduate Pathways to Success program
  • Enabling the development of workshops for faculty designed to enhance the quality of graduate student supervision
  • Producing strategic analyses and reports of the outcomes of our graduate programs
  • Establishing the ‘Postdoctoral Fellows Office’ in FoGS
  • After broad consultation, developing the Graduate Student Strategy and Operational Plan 2010 – 2015 for UBC’s Vancouver campus
  • The Welcome Centre which has provided an inviting and informative space for staff to greet and serve students and faculty
  • FoGS website redevelopment which has improved communications both internally and outside the university

Evans was recently named as one of the top 50 current and emerging leaders in Australia by Advance, the leading global network of Australians and alumni abroad. She was honoured at the Advance Women’s Leadership Summit in Sydney.

Dr. Susan Porter, associate dean of Professional Development and clinical associate professor in the Dept. of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, will be taking up the post of Dean pro tem for the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FoGS) as of April 1, 2011.

Porter took up the post of Associate Dean, Professional Development at FoGS in August of 2008 where her mandate has been to advance graduate student development at UBC with a particular focus on working towards an increased awareness of, and commitment of students to, scholarly and research integrity and social responsibility. She is clinical associate professor in the Dept. of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and a scientist in the Microbiology Laboratory at Vancouver General Hospital, responsible for the development and oversight of molecular-based testing. 

A faculty member at UBC since 1991, she has served as graduate advisor for Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Assistant Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, for the Faculty of Medicine.

http://www.grad.ubc.ca/about-us/news/dean-barbara-evans-concludes-her-ubc-appointment

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Student Development Award winners announced

The winners of the 2010/11 UBC Student Development Awards have been announced:

Margaret Fulton Award (for an individual)

  • Joshua Caulkins, Science Teaching and Learning Fellow
  • Prof. Hugh Neary, Dept. of Economics
  • Charles Shi, International Student Development

Helen McCrae Award (for an Alma Mater Society/Graduate Student Services/UBC Student Services program)

  • Graduate Pathways to Success Program – Faculty of Graduate Studies

Alfred Scow Award (for an undergraduate program/department)

  • Cognitive Systems Program


Peter Larkin Award (for a graduate/post baccalaureate program)

  • Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Program

The Office of the Vice-President, Students presents these awards to recognize exceptional contributions or significant improvements to the student experience and learning environment at UBC.

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UBC researcher elected to American Academy of Microbiology

Prof. Lindsay Eltis has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. The Academy is the honorific leadership group of the American Society for Microbiology, the world’s oldest and largest life science organization. The mission of the Academy is to recognize scientists for outstanding contributions to microbiology and to provide microbiological expertise in the service of science and the public.  

For more information, visit academy.asm.org

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UBC pharmaceutical sciences graduate program wins Peter Larkin award

The Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences announced that it has received the Peter Larkin Award in recognition for its graduate program. The award acknowledges a UBC graduate program or department that has significantly impacted on student life and development in a positive way.

“I’m thrilled and excited,” says Assoc. Dean Helen Burt, Research and Graduate Studies. “We have developed a fantastic program and there is still great potential for us to go further.”

The Faculty thanks everyone who helped to make this honour possible, including Dr. Linda Tran, Dr. Kevin Letchford, Dr. Cindy Prescott and the Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Student Society for their efforts in preparing supporting nomination letters.

For more information, visit http://www.pharmacy.ubc.ca/aboutus/faculty-news.

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Nikola Zlatano receives Young Scientist of the Year Award

The president of the Republic of Macedonia awarded UBC PhD student Nikola Zlatanov the Young Scientist of the Year Award this week. Zlatanov came to UBC in 2010 after completing his master’s degree in electrical engineering at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje.

Working with Prof. Robert Schober from Electrical and Computer Engineering, Zlatanov will pursue his research interests in digital communications over fading channels, characterization and modeling of fading channels and cooperative diversity systems. Zlatanov received a four-year doctoral fellowship from UBC to support this work.

View the award ceremony at http://www.makedonija24.mk/?ContentId=2809.  For more information, visit http://www.ece.ubc.ca/news/201103/nikola-zlatanov-receives-young-scientist-year-award

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Sooyeol Lee wins Best Poster Award, TMS 2011

The best poster award in the Magnesium Technology Session at The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) Annual Meeting in San Diego earlier this month was awarded to Sooyeol Lee, a post doctoral Fellow in the Dept. of Materials Engineering at UBC.  Lee is currently working at the Canadian Neutron Beam Centre at Chalk River, ON.  

The poster, entitled “Neutron Diffraction Study of Plastic Deformation in Mg-8.5wt%Al”, was written in collaboration with two of his colleagues from the Centre, Michael A. Gharghouri and John H. Root.

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UBC Engineering Co-op honours 2011 award winners

In coordination with National Cooperative Educational Week on March 21-25, UBC Engineering Co-op announces its top faculty, student and employer of the year award winners at the annual graduation reception. A total of 288 engineering co-op students from all disciplines successfully graduated with co-op standing from both the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses.

The winners are: students Naeem Mawji (Vancouver) and Holly Rourke (Okanagan); faculty—Professors David Dreisinger (Materials Engineering, Vancouver) and Mina Hoorfar (Okanagan) and  employers Teck Resources (Vancouver) and Kiewit (Okangan).

For more information, visit www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2011/mar22.html 

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UBC engineers place first in Canada in debate

Integrated engineering students Will McClary and Fraser Macdonald placed first in the Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC) 2011’s Extemporaneous Debate category.

The competition was held March 10-13 at McGill University in Montreal. The impromptu debate competition challenges teams of two to compete in a fast-paced, high energy debate, on a topic disclosed immediately preceding the event. Competitors are judged on their ability to present convincing, well-constructed arguments on a wide range of topics, with minimal preparation time.

UBC will host the 2012 Canadian Engineering Competition, and student organizers are preparing to showcase Vancouver and the campus to students and industry representatives from across the nation. More information about next years’ conference can be found at www.cec2012.ca.

For more, visit www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2011/mar15.html

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UBC alumna wins first prize in CBC Literary Awards

UBC creative writing alumna Gina Leola Woolsey was successful at the CBC Radio Literary Awards on March 24, nabbing the first prize for creative nonfiction with her story, My Best Friend

My Best Friend narrates thirty-five years of Woolsey’s relationship with her drug-addicted brother. Described by the award jury as “an unflinching and poignant account of the burdens and comforts of family, and the shifts of balance between siblings”, the tale recounts Woolsey’s interactions with her brother from their troubled childhood to the grim reality of his addictions.

Woolsey is currently working on a full-length memoir about her childhood years shuttling between estranged parents along with her brother.

One of Canada’s most competitive and prestigious awards to writers, the awards receive approximately 5,000 entries each year. Winners of the CBC Literary Awards are determined by a peer review process. This year, two awards were presented in the categories of creative nonfiction, poetry and the short story; first prize is $6,000 and second prize is $4,000.

For more information, visit http://www.arts.ubc.ca/nc/research/single-page-news/article/613/creative-writing-alum-nabs-cbc-literary-award.html

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UBC Engineering gives high-school teacher inaugural McEwen Award

UBC Engineering announces Douglas Park is the recipient of the inaugural McEwen Family Teacher Recognition Award. He teaches biology and video production at Hugh Boyd Secondary School in Richmond. He was nominated by UBC engineering students Paul Milaire and Kohle Merry.

Created to highlight the contributions high-school teachers make to students and communities through their mentorship, the award celebrates those who go above and beyond teaching the curriculum to ensure their students succeed not just academically but personally.

For more information, visit www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2011/mar21.html 

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Theatre at UBC presents the first annual FUN RAISER

This April Fools day Theatre at UBC will hold its first annual Fun Raiser! at the Frederic Wood Theatre featuring the talents of both theatre students and faculty.  The event will also include roller-skating, stilt soccer, fire juggling (poi), stand up comedy, live music, singing and dancing and a silent auction with original art, books, theatre tickets, tasty treats and more. 

The event is being held in honor of Assoc. Prof. Stephen Heatley of the Theatre and Film department. Proceeds will benefit a new award named Kensaku Asano Memorial Award. Kensaku studied Theatre and English Literature at UBC and worked as a theatre and television actor in the years after he graduated. He died of cancer at the age of 25.

Date:    April 1 (one night only)
Time:    7:30 p.m.
Place:   Frederic Wood Theatre, 6354 Crescent Rd.
Info:     Silent auction and reception to follow. Tickets: reg $15| senior $10 student $10
Purchase tickets at 604-822-2678 or http://ubctheatre.universitytickets.com or www.theatre.ubc.ca

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Indonesian Islam: The Modern, Global Shapings of a National Tradition?

UBC Continuing Studies, the Dept. of Asian Studies at UBC, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and the Laurier Institution present Global Islam: Past, Present and Future, a series of free public lectures delivered by some of the world’s most renowned scholars in Islamic studies. 

As part of this series, Michael Laffan, a professor of History and the Philip and Beulah Rollins Bicentennial Preceptor at Princeton University, will discuss Islam in Indonesia.

Laffin is the author of Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds (2003) and is working on a new book, The Making of Indonesian Islam.

Date:    March 26
Time:    7 – 9 p.m.
Place:   UBC Robson Square, 800 Robson St.
Info:     Free public lecture. http://cstudies.ubc.ca/community/courses.html

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Integrated Planning and Design Facility lecture

As part of the ongoing feasibility study for the new UBC Integrated Planning and Design Facility, international environmental design specialist Patrick Bellew of Atelier Ten (London) will be giving a public presentation exploring strategies for innovative low-energy design including a discussion of his work at Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay.  The presentation is tilted “Low Energy Landscapes: teaching and learning with low-energy buildings and landscapes.”

Date:    March 28
Time:    6:30 p.m.
Place:   Buchanan A102, 1866 Main Mall
Info:     http://www.ires.ubc.ca/2011/03/18/patrick-bellew-low-energy-landscapes/ 

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SALA Public Lecture Program presents: Hitoshi Abe, New Types

The School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) will host Hitoshi Abe and his talk New Types. With experience in both the Sendai and Los Angeles areas, he is the principle of Atelier Hitoshi Abe and the chair of UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design.   The presentation is free and open to the public.

Date:    March 29
Time:    6 p.m.
Place: UBC Robson Square, 800 Robson St. 

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Clean Energy Research Centre Seminar Series

The Clean Energy Research Centre introduces Cliff Mui and his presentation Nexterra’s Commercial Biomass Gasification Technology.

Nextarra develops, manufactures and delivers advanced gasification systems that enable customs to self-generate clean, low cost heat and power at industrial and institutional facilities using waste fuels. In an era of higher energy prices, this means dramatically lower costs, higher operating margins and less reliance on fossil fuels and grid-purchased electricity. By using renewable biomass fuels such as wood waste, customers can dramatically reduce their carbon footprint.

Mui will discuss the core gasification technology, its development and penetration into the marketplace, successfully displacing conventional technology as a viable alternative to fossil fuels for heat loads.

Date:    March 28
Time:    3 p.m.
Place:   CHBE Building, 102 – 2360 East Mall

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Asia Pacific Memo update – former Canadian ambassador to Japan on the Crisis (video interview)

Those interested in current issues in Asia and across the Pacific are invited to subscribe to the Asia Pacific Memo (APM) series. Twice-weekly, APM publishes short text memos or video interviews at http://www.asiapacificmemo.ca/

  • March 22: Former Canadian Ambassador to Japan on the Crisis (video interview)

Receive memos in your email twice-weekly: http://www.asiapacificmemo.ca/subscribe

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