UBC This Week

Each year at UBC a number of outstanding faculty are selected to receive a Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring.

During this week’s graduation ceremonies Prof. Adlai Fisher, Sauder School of Business, will receive the 2011 mid-career award while the 2011 senior award is given jointly to Prof. Michael Fryzuk, Dept. of Chemistry and Prof. Brian McIlroy, Dept. of Film and Theatre. These three outstanding graduate student mentors will receive their awards along with the reading of a citation regarding their many contributions to the university and the lives of graduate students.

The Killam Awards for Excellence in Mentoring are based on sustained mentorship of numerous graduate students over many years. Mentoring may be related to, but is distinct from, classroom teaching.

For more on this year’s recipients, read the full article “2011 Killam Mentors Honoured at Fall Congregation” on the UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies website.

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Close to 6,000 students across B.C. are competing to see who can reduce their electricity consumption the most along with creating the most buzz about the competition. The Nov. 7-25 Do it in the Dark competition has attracted 20 residence groups from UBC, Simon Fraser University, University of Northern B.C., University of Victoria and Thompson Rivers University. Participants have been spreading the word, hosting events, making videos and contacting their politicians to talk about energy consumption and climate change. 

Organized by goBEYOND Campus Climate Network, Do it in the Dark is also supported by UBC’s MAGIC Lab and Sense Tecnic Systems Inc., a local company that has created a social media platform called My-Every-Day-Earth that leverages Facebook to create the participation competition. Lucid Design Group created a web-based dashboard to monitor energy consumption for every campus and residence group. A research team from UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning is studying the impact of the competition on student attitudes and behaviour related to sustainability. 

For competition activities and results, visit: doitinthedark.ca

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Electrical and computer engineering professor Robert Schober was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, Germany’s highest-endowed international research award, worth up to five million euros. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation honours world-leading international researchers, working across all disciplines.

For more information, visit: http://www.ece.ubc.ca/

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Prof. Pieter Cullis, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has been honoured for his contribution to pharmaceutical research in Canada.

The Prix Galien Canada recognizes the efforts and achievements of pharmaceutical research and development. Cullis was presented with his award at the Tenth Annual Canadian Health Research Awards on Nov. 16 in Ottawa.

For more information, visit: http://www.med.ubc.ca/about_us/Awards_and_Honours.htm#Dr. Pieter Cullis

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Prof. David Lowe received the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) “Test of Time” Award for his 1999 paper “Object Recognition from Local Scale-Invariant Features”. The award is given to a paper that has shown significant and long term impact on the field of computer vision. Lowe’s paper has been cited more than 3,000 times in Google Scholar and the journal version of the paper has received over 15,000 citations. His SIFT method described in the paper has been licensed by UBC to over a dozen companies.

For more information on Lowe’s research projects, visit: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~lowe/research.html

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Prof. Robert Liston, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, has been appointed Executive Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs in the Faculty of Medicine. In his new role, Liston will provide strategic coordination and leadership between the Faculty of Medicine and the Health Authorities, and will support clinical faculty members throughout the province.

For more information, visit: http://www.med.ubc.ca/__shared/assets/Dr22976.pdf

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Joy Parr’s Sensing Changes: Technologies, Environments, and the Everyday, 1953-2003 published by UBC Press in 2010 has been awarded the Sidney Edelstein Prize by The Society for the History of Technology, an international scholarly society with 1,500 members from more than 35 countries. The prize is awarded to the author of an outstanding scholarly book in the history of technology published during the preceding three years.

The book was also awarded the 2011 Canada Prize in the Social Sciences by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences and shortlisted for the 2011 Sir John A. Macdonald Prize.

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David Wilkinson from UBC and Elicia Maine of Simon Fraser University (SFU) will share their thoughts on “Harnessing Technological Innovation for a Carbon-free Future.” Wilkinson is a professor and Canada Research Chair at UBC’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and director of UBC’s Clean Energy Research Centre. Maine is associate professor at the Beedie School of Business at SFU.

This climate-solutions discussion will cover the role new innovative technology can play in a sustainable carbon-free future, and some of the challenges to its commercialization. This event will be moderated by Paul Evans, director at UBC Institute for Asian Research and a program committee member at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS).

Date: Nov. 24
Time: 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Place: Rm 1300-1500, Segal Graduate School of Business, SFU, 500 Granville Street
Info: Register: http://www.picspubliclecture3.eventbrite.com/. Free admission. Public welcome.
Join the webcast at www.pics.uvic.ca/events.php

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Asst. Prof. Neil Eves, exercise physiologist with the School of Health and Exercise Sciences at the UBC’s Okanagan campus, has been awarded up to $635,000 over the next eight years from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research to study how exercise impacts chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD is an inflammatory disease characterized by progressive limitation to airflow out of the lungs.

Eves will conduct his study on campus and at Kelowna General Hospital in conjunction with colleagues in respiratory medicine. If the study produces the results he is hoping for — that exercise reduces airway and blood inflammation in COPD — Eves says the door will be open to numerous additional studies.

For more information, visit: https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2011/11/17/ubc-researcher-breaks-new-ground-on-copd/

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From wind tunnel aerodynamics and robotics to nanotechnology and DNA testing, 16 teams of UBC engineering students and researchers will provide a sneak peak on what they’re working on Nov. 26 at the new Wayne and William White Engineering Design Centre.

Other highlights include a design contest, demonstrations, lab tours, and presentations. Friends and family are invited to explore. Prospective students can RSVP to win a Blackberry Playbook Tablet.

For more information, visit: http://www.engineering.ubc.ca/openhouse/

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Students from the UBC School of Music will be performing a selection of festive pieces at the Old Auditorium for this free lunch-hour event.

Faculty and staff may pick up advance tickets at the Old Auditorium Box Office (hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.) Please bring your UBC Card. Departments wishing to send a representative to pick up tickets are asked to provide a list of attendees, indicating whether they are faculty or staff. Tickets will be available at the door the day of the concert (space permitting).

This event is sponsored by the Department of Human Resources, and produced by Ceremonies and Events and the School of Music.

Date:  Dec. 8
Time:  11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Doors open 11:20 a.m.
Place: Old Auditorium, 6344 Memorial Road
Info: http://www.ceremonies.ubc.ca/what-we-do/seasonal/
Parking at Rose Garden Parkade

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Interested in current issues in Asia and across the Pacific? Subscribe to the Asia Pacific Memo (APM) series. Twice-weekly, APM publishes short text Memos or video interviews at http://www.asiapacificmemo.ca

• Nov. 22 – The Philippines’ Labour Export Policies – Pros and Cons
• Nov. 17 – Interview with Ezra Vogel on Deng Xiaoping and Chinese Politics (Part 2/3)

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The CBC is looking for the Smartest Person in Canada as part of a two-hour television special. Participants will be chosen from every background and will show potential in logic smarts, social smarts, musical smarts, physical smarts, linguistic smarts and visual smarts. They will be challenged with fun tests to prove they have the most versatile smarts in the country and earn the title of Canada’s Smartest Person.

Applications are available online http://www.cbc.ca/smartestperson from Dec. 5, 2011 to Jan. 1, 2012.

For the latest information,”like” Canada’s Smartest Person on Facebook or follow on Twitter @CanadasSmartest.

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On Nov. 22, 2011, the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC hosted an event to unveil design concepts for The Story of Medicines. An interactive exhibition, The Story of Medicines is a hands-on interpretive exhibition that tells the story of pharmacy through multiple perspectives.

To view the presentation and learn more, visit http://www.pharmacy.ubc.ca/aboutus/building-information/som

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