UBC This Week 20-Jun-2013

UBC professor Dr. Julio Montaner has been awarded a $2.5 million research award over five years from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to support his continued research on B.C.’s Seek and Treat for Optimal Prevention of HIV/AIDS (STOP HIV/AIDS) initiative.

Montaner was an inaugural recipient of NIDA’s Avant-Garde Award Program for HIV/AIDS research in 2008, which provided $2.5 million over five years to support research for STOP HIV/AIDS’s pilot project.

The new research award will support further studies that will lead to new avenues for prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

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UBC Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) founding director, the late Clyde Hertzman was honoured with a Champion of Human Services Award by the Board of Directors of the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association (OMSSA). OMSSA selected Hertzman for his proven and respected track record of achievement in human services. He is recognized as a thought leader and his work has played a significant role in progressing human services in Ontario and across Canada.

Joanne Schroeder, Deputy Director of HELP, accepted Hertzman’s award at the OMSSA annual conference in Ottawa on June 18. OMSSA will be highlighting Hertzman’s achievements throughout the year on its website.

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Computer science professor and co-founder and CSO of Tasktop Technologies Gail Murphy was named one of Top 10 Women in Technology by BC Tech magazine. As a leading researcher on software evolution and tools, Murphy has led Tasktop Technologies in becoming a world leader in the software sector with over two million users including the majority of the Global 2000. The company saw 250 per cent growth in 2012, and was named Ready to Rocket for the second year in a row. For more information, click here.

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Five civil engineering professors and one graduate student were honoured by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) during its annual conference in Montreal from May 29-June 1.

• Prof. Dharma Wijewickreme received the CSCE’s Horst Leipholz Medal for his contributions to engineering mechanics research and practice in Canada. He was also inducted a CSCE Fellow for his contributions to the development and practice of engineering in Canada.

• Professors Greg Lawrence and Tarek Sayed were inducted CSCE Fellows. Lawrence holds a Canada Research Chair in Environmental Fluid Mechanics and is a world authority on wave motion. Sayed is world-renowned for his research on road safety analysis and evaluation.

• Civil engineering MASc student Ryan I. Thoren and professors James Atwater and Pierre Bérubé received the 2013 Donald R. Stanley Award for their paper “A model for analyzing water reuse and resource recovery potential in urban areas.”

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Civil engineering professors Nemy Banthia, Ken Elwood and Bernard Laval have received 2013 Discovery Grant Accelerator Supplement Awards from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Only 12 NSERC awards were given nationally this year. For more information, click here.

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The UBC Sailbots successfully defended their championship, winning the 2013 International Robotic Sailing Regatta held June 9-13 in Gloucester, MA. The UBC Sailbot team – Kristoffer Vik Hansen (captain), David Lee, Josh Andrews, Sirous Soltanolketabi, Alexander Kroitzsch, Yasmeen Akbari and James Lee – sailed their two-metre, unmanned robotic sailboat to a perfect score of 50/50 – the first in the history of the competition. For more information, click here.

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The UBC Thunderbots are leaving to compete in the RoboCup World Championship in Eindhoven, the Netherlands from June 24 to July 1. Thunderbots FC have redesigned major components of their robots and fabricated an all-new fleet of eight robots for this competition. The team will travel to Mannheim, Germany first to participate in a pre-competition workshop hosted by the DHBW Mannheim from June 19-23. For more information, click here.

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Phoebe Yingjie Li, a PhD student in the Department of Materials Engineering, won the third place award in the student poster competition at the Forest Innovation by Research and Education Network Conference on May 13-16 in Cornwall, ON. Competing with 171 posters, Li’s winning topic was “Multifunctional lignin composite nanofibres.” Li gives an interview at the conference here.

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Ten students are recognized with gold medals for being at the top of their graduating class at UBC’s Okanagan campus convocation. The individual awards can be viewed here.

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The Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences building has won Azure magazine’s 2013 AZ Award in the category of best commercial architecture over 1,000 square metres. This is the eighth award that the building has won since opening in September 2012. To read more, click here.

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About 100 Aboriginal children in rural B.C. will be able to attend math summer camps hosted by UBC thanks to a $30,000 gift from Royal Bank’s RBC Foundation. The camps, organized by the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) and UBC Mathematics, are a key part of the university’s efforts to foster an interest in mathematics among Aboriginal K-12 students. For more visit http://science.ubc.ca/news/712

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On June 15, 19 riders and two crew volunteers set off on a two-day, 240-kilometre bike journey to Seattle in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, benefitting the B.C. Cancer Foundation. This was the second year UBC has participated in the event, with a team of staff, students, faculty, and alumni. Team UBC has raised over $55,000 to date (donations can still be made here). Those interested in joining Team UBC in 2014 can contact Lynn Newman.

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Saskia Vaisey, an incoming UBC student this fall, is one four Canadian university students biking from Vancouver to Inuvik this summer to raise awareness about climate change. The group, named GrassRoutes, will hold sustainability workshops, teach bike repair lessons, and film a short video documentary of their “Journey to the Midnight Sun.” Starting Aug. 1, the team plans to bike 100 kilometres a day and expects to arrive in Inuvik in late August (approximately 1,800 km). For more information, view their website here.

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Pop Rocks, the art installation by Amber Frid-Jimenez and School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture professors Matthew Soules and Joseph Dahmen, was featured in Canadian Architect magazine. The oversized beanbags that turned the 800-block of Robson Street into a lounge area in the summer of 2012 are now located on Main Mall on the Vancouver campus. Read the full story here.

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The Alma Mater Society (AMS) Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC) at UBC’s Vancouver campus has relocated to a new space within the Student Union Building. The SASC can now be found in 249M within the AMS Services Centre. The SASC provides support services to survivors of sexualized violence and educational opportunities within the community. Additional information can be found via www.gotconsent.ca.

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