UBC This Week 18-Jul-2013

Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Rabab Ward will serve as 2014-2015 Signal Processing Society (SPS) president-elect. She succeeds Alex Acero of Microsoft who will become president in 2014.

SPS is a professional society for signal processing scientists and professionals with more than 15,000 members worldwide. For more information, click here.

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UBC Okanagan engineering professors Rehan Sadiq and Kasun Hewage are working with the City of Penticton to help the municipality make city-owned buildings more energy-efficient. Life-cycle analysis by the two researchers will look at everything from recycling to electrical consumption in an effort to help the city reach its goal of reducing corporate greenhouse gas emissions. For more information, click here.

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Local architect Ronald B. Howard contributed to the architectural design of Vancouver during the second half of the twentieth century through his work on the Kitsilano Pool, the Langara College campus and the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Howard attributed much of his success to his training in the UBC School of Architecture, where he excelled academically and developed his passion for design. He shared his UBC experience with his children Geoffrey Howard, Timothy Howard and Lisa Tuer, who after his passing, decided to establish the Ronald B. Howard Memorial Bursary in his memory.

The bursary will award $1,230 each year in financial assistance to a student in the second year of the Masters of Architecture program who exhibits outstanding academic potential and who shares Howard’s passion for excellence in design and academic achievement.

The inaugural bursary will be awarded for the 2013-2014 academic year. For more information, click here.

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The Crest.BD network has secured a Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Knowledge to Action grant for $200,000. Titled “Like a ship that’s always righting itself: Self-management of bipolar disorder, from evidence to action,” the two-year project will test out a variety of ways of sharing knowledge on bipolar disorder (BD) self-management with two user groups – people with BD and BD healthcare providers. The Crest.BD group is led by Dr. Erin Michalak, associate professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry. For more information, click here.

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Mechanical Engineering professor James Olson, Director of the Pulp and Paper Centre, is among 125 applicants to receive an NSERC Discover Accelerator Supplement to support his research program “Towards an Engineering Design Tool for Advanced Fibre Products.” For more information, click here.

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School of Nursing associate professor Bernie Garrett‘s new book Science and Modern Thought in Nursing: Pragmatism & Praxis for Evidence-based Practice presents a pragmatic approach to the philosophy of nursing science that underpins evidence-based practice, including an exploration of research methodologies. For more information, click here.

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Dr. Mary De Vera was recently invited by the B.C. Medical Journal to blog about medication non-adherence. To read more, click here.

Dr. Corey Nislow was interviewed about his work with the evolution of DNA structure. To listen to the podcast, click here.

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Computer Science professor Nando de Freitas, graduate students Ziyu Wang, Masrour Zoghi, David Matheson and postdoc Frank Hutter received the 2013 IJCAI Distinguished Paper Award for their work on ‘Bayesian Optimization in High Dimensions via Random Embeddings’. Click here for more information on the award.

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Olivia Tseng, a PhD student with UBC’s Interdisciplinary Oncology Program, has been awarded a Telus-Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation Fellowship to investigate how interactions with family physicians can improve care for people who have experienced breast cancer.

Tseng, a practising family physician in the Vancouver area and a member of the Clinician Scholar Program of the Department of Family Practice, was one of five fellows who will receive the award, designed to support specialized medical and allied health professional training that will strengthen multidisciplinary care teams focused on improving breast cancer treatment and care.

Her project is focused on improving primary care for breast cancer patients surviving after cancer treatment. For more information, click here.

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Bita Imam, a PhD candidate in Rehabilitation Sciences, has received the 2013 Rising Star Award from Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. The award recognizes her research achievements and volunteer work. Imam investigates the use of a home-oriented Nintendo Wii Fit program to improve walking in older adults with a lower limb amputation. She is also involved in research on fatigue of people with spinal cord injury. She is co-founder and director of the Light, Hope and Life charitable organization, which raises money for the education of impoverished children. For more information, click here.

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