UBC This Week 18-Apr-2013

 

Recent UBC Media Releases

Apr. 18 $25M grant brings African students to UBC
Apr. 16 Vroum vroum – Test of metal for student engineered hovercrafts
Apr. 16 Anxious about life? Tylenol may do the trick
Apr. 15 UBC experts for B.C. election
Apr. 15 Expedition team releases photographs of threatened double-barrier reef
Apr. 12 Spinal cord researchers to benefit from $20 M investment from Rick Hansen Foundation

Upcoming Event Highlights

Apr. 18 The Search for Happiness
Apr. 18 Is It Happening
Apr. 19 2013 Nursing Graduate Student Research Symposium
Apr. 19 Tim Lilburn and Lake Launch
Apr. 20 Vancouver Brain Bee
Apr. 20 Safar/Voyage: Contemporary Works by Arab, Iranian and Turkish Artists Opening Reception
Apr. 21 Horticulture Training Program – Info Session
Apr. 21 Chan Centre presents: Lila Downs
Apr. 22 Using Sources: How to Maintain Authorial Agency and Avoid Plagiarism
Apr. 22 Mobile Commerce
Apr. 23 Biodiversity in the Garden Lecture
Apr. 23 Purple & Yellow Bike Mechanics Work Party
Apr. 24 Community screenings: First Nations Film Topics
Apr. 24 Stand Up for Mental Health
Apr. 25 Fifty years in Serengeti: the story behind the science
Apr. 25 Hamletmachine
Apr. 27 POV Film Festival
Apr. 27 The Chan Centre Presents: Simon Shaheen in “The Call: Songs of Liberation”
Find out what else is happening at UBC this week. For sports events, visit the UBC Athletics site at http://www.gothunderbirds.ca/calendar.aspx.

UBC People


UBC People

Alumni Weekend 2013

This year’s UBC Alumni Weekend will include tours of the TRIUMF National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics, the Botanical Garden Canopy Walkway and a live performance by Canada’s top ranter and honorary UBC alumnus, Rick Mercer.

Alumni can join in topical discussions with UBC faculty, reminisce with friends at the University Fair or beer garden, and enjoy concerts, camps and puppet shows. Most events are free and open to the public. Full information is available here.

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Two UBC recipients of the 2013 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Achievement

UBC music professor emeritus and violinist Andrew Dawes has received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Achievement for his music contributions. In 1965, Dawes helped found the Orford Quartet in which he played for 30 years. His recordings include Mozart and Beethoven cycles. For more information, click here.

UBC alumnus Eric Peterson received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Achievement for his theatre work. Peterson’s stage work took off in the 1970s at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille. He gained recognition in Canada and abroad in the title role of John Gray’s play Billy Bishop Goes to War. He is also well-known for his work on the TV series Street Legal and Corner Gas. Next year, Peterson will star in the UBC Theatre’s production of Seeds, a dramatic re-enactment of the four-year legal battle between Saskatchewan farm Percy Schmeiser (Peterson) and one of the biggest biotech corporations, Monsanto Inc.

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UBC engineers inducted Fellows

UBC engineering professors Yusuf Altintas, Sheldon Cherry, Michael Isaacson, Shahab Sokhansanj and Kevin Smith were inducted Fellows of Engineers Canada (FEC) for their achievements and service to the engineering profession in Canada.

Held every two years, the induction ceremony was hosted by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. on March 7 in Vancouver. Engineers Canada is the national organization of the 12 provincial and territorial associations that regulate the practice of engineering in Canada and license the country’s more than 160,000 professional engineers. For more information, click here.

Materials Engineering professor and Applied Science associate dean of research and graduate studies Akram Alfantazi was inducted Fellow of NACE International to recognize his more than 20 years of contribution to global leadership in education and scientific research, and support to industrial practice in corrosion science and engineering. At UBC, Alfantazi leads one of the largest academic research groups in the area of corrosion in the world.

Alfantazi is the first UBC professor to receive this award and one of few honorees of nearly 30,000 memberships worldwide. For more information, click here.

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Computer Science professor elected CRA board member

UBC Computer Science department head and professor Anne Condon is one of three newly elected members of the Computer Research Association (CRA) Board of Directors. The CRA Board of Directors is a group of leaders in computing research from academia and industry that works to support CRA’s mission to strengthen research and advanced education in computing and allied fields. For more information, click here.

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UBC professor wins ASM Lifetime Achievement Award

Professor Emeritus Julian Davies, UBC Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, has won the 2013 American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Lifetime Achievement Award for his pioneering work on antimicrobials and his leadership and service to the field of microbiology. He founded TerraGen Diversity, one of the first environmental DNA metagenomic start-ups. Since retiring in 1997, he continues to teach and run a laboratory in the Life Sciences Institute at UBC where his research focuses on the roles of small molecules in bacterial community signaling. For more details, click here.

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Innovation Impacts: Measurement and Assessment

The Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation asked the Council of Canadian Academies to conduct a report entitled Innovation Impacts: Measurement and Assessment. This report assesses best practices in measuring the socio-economic impacts of government spending on research and innovation activities that could be applied in the Ontario context. Professor Emeritus David Dolphin, Department of Chemistry, UBC, was one of the 13-member panel of multidisciplinary experts from Canada and abroad convened by the Council. For more information, or to view the report, click here.

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UBC Library and Pacific BookWorld News Society book prize awarded to B.C. author

B.C. author Derek Hayes is the recipient of the inaugural Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia, a new award from UBC Library and the Pacific BookWorld News Society. Hayes was chosen for his 2012 book, British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas (Douglas & McIntyre). The $1,000 prize will be awarded at a reception on May 7 at UBC’s Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. For more information, click here.

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Engineering Alumni Awards 2013

The UBC Engineering Alumni Awards took place on April 10, 2013 at the Four Seasons Hotel to recognize some of this year’s engineering excellence.

The 2013 Engineering Alumni Award winners are:

• Lifetime Achievement (alumni) – Jim McEwen BASc 1971, PhD 1975
• Community Service (alumni) – Claudio Arato BSc 1989, BASc 1991
• Young Alumnus (alumni under 35 years) – Pamela Rogalski BASc 2007
• Future Alumnus (current UBC Engineering students) – Tagg Jefferson and Connor Schellenberg-Beaver
• Emeriti Faculty (retired or emeriti) – Phillip Hill

For more information, click here.

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Secondary teacher recognized by UBC Engineering’s McEwen Award

UBC Engineering recognized Susan Hunter-Jivung, physics teacher at Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School in Surrey, with the 2013 McEwen Family Teacher Recognition Award. 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 academically and personally.

Nominated by first-year UBC Engineering student Wyatt Gronnemose, Hunter-Jivung organizes and leads numerous extra-curricular events that foster the development of high-school students and contribute to their long-term human potential.

Two finalists recognized alongside Hunter-Jivung are North Surrey High School teacher Jeanne Tang and Steven MacKenzie of George Elliot Secondary.

For more information, click here.

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Engineering research featured on cover of Physica Status Solidi (a)

Assistant Professors Alireza Nojeh and Ken Takahata from the MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) lab in electrical engineering had their journal paper recently published as the front cover publication in the Physica Status Solidi (a) April 2013 issue. For more information, click here.

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Café Scientifique – Allergies: What can be done?

UBC professors Drs. Stuart Turvey, Edmond Chan and Amin Kanani will address the latest advance in allergy research and care in Café Scientifique – Allergies: What can be done? In celebration of International Day of Immunology, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Human Immunology Network is hosting Café Scientifique events throughout Canada.

Date:  April 29, 2013
Time:  6:15 – 7 p.m. refreshments; 7 – 8 p.m. talks and discussion
Place: VanDusen Gardens Great Hall, 5251 Oak Street
Info: Rsvp to guarantee free admission: allergiescafesci@gmail.com

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