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UBC People

Winners for 2011 President’s Service Award for Excellence announced

Recognizing the contributions of staff members to the UBC community, five staff will receive the 2011 President’s Service Award for Excellence. Presented during the spring convocation ceremonies, this award acknowledges staff members who have made outstanding contributions to UBC and excelled in their own personal achievements.

  • Katherine Beaumont, Director of Go Global.  Beaumont has helped ensure that UBC students have the opportunity to engage in global citizenship.  She is recognized for her expertise in defining international learning opportunities and has helped build a broad range of successful programs for students on both the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses.
  • Carol Mayer, curator (Oceania & Africa) for UBC’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA), is known locally and internationally as an outstanding mentor, colleague, teacher and curator.  Having curated more than 40 exhibits, Mayer’s commitment to objects and their representation of cultural, social and political issues has helped propel MOA’s reputation as a world-class museum.
  • Patricia Mirwaldt, Director of Student Health Services. Mirwaldt has been committed to providing students with some of the best university health services in Canada.  She has worked to ensure that students have access to a wide variety of health services and that these services are easily accessible.
  • Michele Ng, project coordinator in the Dept. of Computer Science, has been the driving force behind building industry liaisons, student engagement and alumni relations for her department. Ng helped create the biggest tri-mentoring program in UBC and has spent countless hours offering support and advice for students and prospective students.
  • Tangerine Twiss has been with the central international office at UBC for the past 25 years, helping to move forward UBC’s commitment to developing global collaborations and relationships. She ensures that international visitors feel welcome and that their visits are memorable. Recognized for regularly going above and beyond the parameters of her duties, many students, faculty and staff have experienced first-hand her deep sense of caring for others.

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UBC School of Environmental Health merges with the School of Population and Public Health

The UBC Senate yesterday approved the merger of the School of Environmental Health (SOEH) in the College for Interdisciplinary Studies with the School of Population and Public Health (SPPH) in the Faculty of Medicine. The SOEH name will no longer be used. Its academic programs, research and personnel will join and enrich SPPH’s Occupational and Environmental Health Theme.

“Research and teaching of occupational and environmental health traditionally are located within a school of public health in North American and European universities,” says Dr. Kay Teschke, Acting Director of SOEH. “Since the creation of the School of Population and Public Health in 2008 and now its recent move to the same building as SOEH, there is broad support for these two schools to merge.”

“This merger is the most recent example of the School of Population and Public Health bringing together units at UBC with the common goal of improving health to provide the best possible research and teaching programs,” says Dr. David Patrick, Director of SPPH.  “The side by side training of specialists in different aspects of public health will prepare them to work together in interdisciplinary teams throughout their careers.”

For more information, visit http://www.spph.ubc.ca/?p2=modules/blog/viewcomments.jsp&bid=104

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Graduate Pathways to Success Wins 2010/11 Helen McCrae Award

The Faculty of Graduate Studies (FoGS) announces that its Graduate Pathways to Success program (GPS) has been chosen to receive the 2010/11 Helen McCrae Award.  This annual award is in recognition of a student service that has had a significant positive impact on the student life and student development at UBC.

“It was the vision of Dean Barbara Evans when she first came to UBC in 2007 to build on the professional development initiatives already existing at FoGS, and before she left this April, she was delighted to see that her vision had become the successful GPS program,” said GPS program manager Elizabeth Wallace.

In the period from Sept 2010 to May 2011 GPS has, or will hold, 75 offerings with more than 2500 graduate students in attendance.  Program offerings cover a wide range of personal and professional development topics to support graduate students throughout their time in graduate school, allowing them to develop some of the skills and competencies needed to thrive as professionals and to make meaningful contributions to society.

Wallace and FoGS dean pro tem Susan Porter will accept the award on behalf of the program on April 21.

For more information, visit www.grad.ubc.ca/gps

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UBC mining engineer recognized by Engineers Canada

UBC mining engineering professor Rimas Pakalnis has been named Fellow of Engineers Canada for his noteworthy achievement and service to the engineering profession.

Pakalnis is an expert in developing geotechnical design methods for underground openings. His research areas include applied mine design and design under consolidated backfill. He has consulted/researched more than 100 mines around the world. 

For more information, visit www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2011/apr4.html

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UBC Pharmaceutical Sciences receives $250,000 equipment donation from Merck Canada

Merck Canada has donated lab equipment and supplies valued at approximately $250,000 to the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC. In the fall of 2010, Merck Canada closed the doors of its research facility in Kirkland, Quebec. Although the laboratory was well known for the excellence of its research and the productivity of its scientists, the merger of Merck and Schering-Plough in 2009 prompted a review of all research and manufacturing facilities of the company across the world.

In designing the new network, Merck saw a creative opportunity to help UBC Pharmaceutical Sciences.  Some of the equipment will be put into immediate use, and a portion of it will be stored for use in the expanded number of laboratories in the new Pharmaceutical Sciences building.

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

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UBC civil engineering graduate student wins prestigious scholarship

Civil Engineering graduate student Emilie Lapointe is the 2011 Vale Master’s in Engineering Scholarship winner. Awarded by the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation, this prestigious $10,000 scholarship is awarded annually to the most promising woman in a graduate engineering program at the master’s level in Canada.

Recognized as an outstanding and dedicated member of her community, Lapointe donates her time and energy to helping others, while extolling the values of leadership and promoting the profession of engineering.

For more information, visit www.engineering.ubc.ca/news/2011/apr18.html

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April 17-22: Tweet for the Planet honours Earth Day

The UBC Sustainability Initiative aims to get the tweetosphere all a twitter with its “Tweet for the Planet” (or, in the vernacular of Twitter, “#tweet4planet”) campaign.

On now until Earth Day (April 22), Tweet for the Planet encourages individuals to share links to their sustainability ideas, projects, research, videos, books, blogs and inspiration using the hashtag #tweet4planet.

For more: http://www.sustain.ubc.ca/sustainability-ubc/tweet-planet

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Green College ticket offer to UBC Students: Global Civic Policy Society Public Salon

As part of a continuing collaboration between Green College, UBC, and The Global Civic Policy Society directed by former mayor of Vancouver Sam Sullivan, the College is offering UBC students a limited number of complimentary tickets (reg. $12/15) to the next Public Salon on May 4, 2011.

The program features actor and branding strategist Kahlil Ashanti, restaurant entrepreneur Mark Brand, urban land economist Michael Goldberg, director of the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning Penny Gurstein, president of Vancouver Community College Kathy Kinloch, former producer of 60 Minutes Peter Klein, impresario of Music on Main David Pay, Canadian Sport Centre Pacific  CEO Wendy Pattenden, head of the Sustainability Centre at UBC John Robinson, and Early Childhood Medical researcher Clara Van Karnebeek.

Date:  May 4
Time:  7:30 – 9 p.m.
Place:  Vancouver Playhouse Theatre, corner of Hamilton and Dunsmuir
Info:  Complimentary tickets first-come, first-serve (max. two per request).
Contact gc.events@ubc.ca.
 Website: http://www.greencollege.ubc.ca/whats_on/index/events415/2011-05.php
 Tickets can also be purchased for $12/$15: www.globalcivic.org

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Asia Pacific Memo update – Tagore in today’s world / UBC celebrating the 150th birthday of Tagore

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

  • April 19 – Tagore in Today’s World – Harvard professor Sugata Bose (video interview)

To read the memos, visit http://www.asiapacificmemo.ca/

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