UBC This Week 05-Jul-2012

Four UBC members were among 70 new appointments to the Order of Canada, established in 1967 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to recognize a lifetime of outstanding achievement, service and dedication on the national stage.

• Music professor and head of composition Stephen Chatman is recognized for his contributions as a composer and teacher to a generation of Canadian composers.

• Alumnus Silver Donald Cameron (BA’60) for his contributions as a journalist, writer, educator, consultant and dedicated community activist.

• Gordon Semenoff, professor of physics and astronomy for his work as a theoretical physicist, with significant contributions to string theory, quantum field theory and statistical mechanics.

• Business and community leader Lois Mitchell for her volunteerism in support of sport and the arts across the country. Mitchell is a UBC donor and member of the start an evolution fundraising and alumni engagement Campaign Cabinet. The Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre was named in honour of her husband and alumnus Doug Mitchell (Law’62) in recognition of their family’s outstanding financial support and leadership.

The list of recipients and citations can be found at http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=14606&lan=eng.

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Clinical members of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC are recipients of five 2012 Excellence in B.C. Health Care Awards. Drs. Dan Martinusen, Piera Calissa, Bruce Lange, Marianna Leung, and alumnus Judith Marin (PharmD’06), are winners of the Collaborative Solutions Award for their work on a project, “Innovative Protocolization of Anemia Therapy in Dialysis Patients in the BC Provincial Renal Agency.” To read more, visit http://www.pharmacy.ubc.ca/aboutus/faculty-news/2012-07-04.

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Margo Tamez, assistant professor of Indigenous Studies and Gender-Women’s Studies in the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences at UBC’s Okanagan campus, has been invited by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to present research findings on the impacts of militarization on indigenous peoples, their lands and territories on international borders.

Tamez will present during the fifth Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), held July 9 to 13 in Geneva, Switzerland. EMRIP provides the Human Rights Council with thematic advice, in the form of studies and research, on the rights of indigenous peoples.

For more information, visit https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2012/07/03/ubc-professors-research-requested-by-un-human-rights-council.

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Dr. Kishor Wasan, professor and associate dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences is a recipient of a 2012 Prostate Cancer Canada Pilot Grant. To read more, visit http://www.pharmacy.ubc.ca/aboutus/faculty-news/2012-07-03.

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Faculty of Law PhD student Carol Liao is this year’s recipient of the Robert Bertram Doctoral Research Award, which supports the research of Canada’s most promising senior PhD candidates studying corporate governance issues. For more information, visit http://www.law.ubc.ca/news/2012/july/07_03_12_bertram.html.

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Lukas Bichler, assistant professor of engineering at UBC’s Okanagan campus, has received the Brimacombe Award, a national award given by the Metallurgy and Materials Society (MetSoc) to young achievers who bring people together to collaborate on innovative research and significantly advance research in the field of materials science. Bichler is the fourth recipient of the award since its creation in 1998.

Karen Robles, a Master of Applied Science student who works with Bichler, recently received the first-ever MetSoc Masters Scholarship to support her work in the field of materials science.

For more information, visit https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2012/07/03/engineering-professor-and-student-recognized-nationally-for-research/.

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Briar Craig, associate professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, has been awarded second prize for his screen printing at the international exhibition Imprima 2012 — Mostra Internacional de Gravura, in Sobral, Brazil. The exhibition runs from May 15 to August 15 at the Casa de Cultura de Sobral. The prize includes an invitation to mount a solo exhibition of works at the House of Culture in Sobral.

For more information, visit https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2012/06/27/ubc-professor-exhibits-art-around-the-world/.

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Ernie Dick, Paul Lesack and Anne Miele are this year’s recipients of UBC Library’s staff recognition awards. Award categories include Unsung Hero, Innovation and Employee Excellence. Each recipient received $750 and a tailored award presented by University Librarian Ingrid Parent during the Library staff appreciation luncheon on June 27.
 
For more information, visit about.library.ubc.ca/2012/07/04/ubc-library-staff-award-program-winners/.

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More than 30 students, staff, and faculty from UBC will be presenting their research at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Portland on Aug. 5-10. For more information, visit http://eco.confex.com/eco/2012/webprogram/programs.html.

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Tasktop, a startup company that UBC Computer Science professor Gail Murphy co-founded, received the “Emerging Company of the Year” award from B.C. Technology Industry Association. Tasktop Technologies is a global leader in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Automation solutions. For more details, visit https://www.cs.ubc.ca/news/2012/06/tasktop-won-bc-tias-emerging-company-year-award

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Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering research team of PhD students Mohammad Najafi and Narges Afsham and Professors Purang Abolmaesumi and Robert Rohling won the best paper award at the International Conference on Information Processing in Computer Assisted Intervention. Their paper describes methods of improving the accuracy of locating 3D ultrasound images used for image-guided surgeries and procedures. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/N7AwH9.

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UBC School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) PhD student Lyana Patrick is one out of 130 students across Canada to win a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship for her proposal “Addictions and Mental Health Planning in 21st Century Canada – Examining Cultural Safety Through an Indigenous Planning Paradigm.” For more information, visit http://www.scarp.ubc.ca/news/2012/apr/27/lyana-patrick-winner-prestigious-vanier-canada-graduate-scholarship.

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Georgia Barlaoura, a first-year student from Greece enrolled in UBC’s Master of Archival Studies program, is the 2012 recipient of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Travel Award from the Society of American Archivists. The award will be presented at a ceremony during SAA’s annual meeting in San Diego, August 6‒11, 2012.

Barloura was invited to work on the International Council on Archives Multilingual Terminological Database and is responsible for the Greek language.

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Sixty high-school students from around the country have descended on UBC for four weeks in July to live at UBC to attend the Shad Valley program, taking advanced lectures on science, engineering and technology while learning how these disciplines can be fused with entrepreneurial thinking and innovation. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/O1oct5.

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UBC Law professor Sharon Sutherland will host this year’s Slayage Conference along with Hélène Frohard-Dourlent from the Department of Sociology. The Conference will bring together academics from around the world and across disciplines from July 12 to 15 to discuss the works of Whedon or Whedonverses, the fictional universe encompassing the worlds forming the setting for the television and film works of Joss Whedon — notably the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, and the film Serenity.

For more information, visit http://www.law.ubc.ca/news/2012/july/07_03_12_whedon.html.

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Asia Pacific Memo (APM) has been awarded a grant that will allow it to develop visualizations and expand its audience in a targeted manner.

APM will continue to translate academic research on contemporary Asia after receiving a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Public Outreach Grant, “Asia Pacific Memo Phase Two – Expanding the Reach and Impact of Research on Contemporary Asia through Social Media, Visualizations, and Outreach to Secondary Schools.”

For more information, visit http://www.asiapacificmemo.ca/about/public-outreach-grant.

To read APM’S most recent memos, visit http://www.asiapacificmemo.ca/

• Women Part of a Major Turnover in Mongolian Parliament, by UBC Prof. Julian Dierkes
• The Republic of China: Restoring a Father’s and a Nation’s Life Story, by UBC Prof. Emeritus Diana Lary

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