UBC This Week 21-Jun-2012

The Pulp and Paper Centre at UBC recently entered into a research partnership with paper-manufacturing giant Lee & Man of Hong Kong. The research is intended to create new technologies and processes to convert fast-growing, renewable bio-mass into high-value chemicals and materials by optimizing and improving product quality in its current bio-conversion process to make it more cost-effective. Lee & Man has provided over $500,000 in support of the partnership, which will continue through the end of 2015.

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/KRO7Dm

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Angela Redish has been appointed as the Vice Provost and Associate Vice President Enrolment and Academic Facilities for a five-year term commencing Sept. 1, 2012. Redish is a professor in the Department of Economics in the Faculty of Arts at UBC, having taught here for nearly 30 years. She served as head of UBC’s Dept. of Economics from 2001-2006 and subsequently served as senior advisor to President Stephen Toope, acting as a faculty liaison and providing advice on the university budget and government relations. More recently, Redish has been actively involved with the project to establish the Vancouver School of Economics at UBC.

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Dr. Gordon Binsted has been appointed to a five-year term as Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Development at UBC’s Okanagan campus. The faculty includes the School of Nursing, School of Social Work, and the School of Health and Exercise Sciences. An active researcher in the field of human kinetics, Binsted has served as acting dean since 2011.
For more information, visit https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2012/06/18/new-dean-appointed-for-ubcs-faculty-of-health-and-social-development/.

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UBC’s Human Resources department received an International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Bronze Quill Award for their communications around the Workplace Experiences Survey. The awards recognize communications excellence in B.C. For more information, visit http://www.iabc.bc.ca/.

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Maria Piao, a UBC computer science, physics and mathematics student, has been awarded a scholarship by Microsoft Corp. for the 2012-2013 school year.

“I am passionate about technology and the convenience it brings people,” says Piao. “In the near future, I plan to pursue a master’s degree in computer science, ideally studying something algorithm-related.”

Microsoft scholarships are awarded based on criteria including merit, diversity, commitment to leadership and a nominee’s interest in a career in technology.

For more information, visit http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-scholarships.aspx

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UBC engineering students unseated the defending champion US Naval Academy and defeated seven other teams from across the world winning the sixth Annual International Robotic Sailing Competition. The competition challenges students to design, build and race robotic sailboats.

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/LkZd6O.

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The Formula UBC team will represent UBC in the International Formula SAE Competition in Lincoln, Nebraska June 20-23. The competition comprises a series of dynamic challenges to test the car’s ability to accelerate and maneuver, and static challenges where marketing, budget, and engineering design are critiqued by engineer judges. The team completed the car on schedule with time for> testing and modifications, bringing down the four-year build cycle of previous Formula UBC cars, to one year.

For more information, visit http://students.sae.org/competitions/formulaseries/west/

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Speakers Evan Wood and Robyn Sussel will discuss how an effective communications strategy can benefit the entire research project lifecycle, from engaging stakeholders in project development, to mobilizing research outputs in order to impact policy and practices as well as commercial uptake.

Wood will explain how effectively communicating research played a pivotal role in the adoption of a new treatment mechanism for HIV/AIDS patients and in the establishment of the controversial InSite facility. Wood is co-director of the Urban Health Research Initiative at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and professor in the Dept. of Medicine at UBC.

Sussel will provide an overview of the critical steps involved in creating a communications strategy to maximize the impacts of research projects. Sussel, a principal of Signals Design Group, has developed branding programs for Providence Health Care, the federally funded PROOF Centre for Excellence, and the B.C. Cancer Agency.

The session will be moderated by UBC Public Affairs director, Lucie McNeill.

Date: June 26
Time: 12 – 1:30 p.m.
Place: Michael Smith Laboratories, Lecture Theater (Room 102), 2185 East Mall
Info: Register at http://www.entrepreneurship.ubc.ca/genomics/research-planning-for-impacts

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Short text memos or video interviews on current issues in Asia and across the Pacific are published twice-weekly in the Asia Pacific Memo series at http://www.asiapacificmemo.ca/

• Managing South Asia’s Himalayan Rivers: A Human Development Framework, by UBC PhD student Tashi Tsering
• Indonesia’s Unconsolidated Democracy: Prelude to 2014, by UBC alumnus Matthew Bock

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