UBC This Week 29-Aug-2013

 

Recent UBC Media Releases

Aug 29 Story tip: UBC makes major investment in student housing
Aug 29 Poverty impairs cognitive function
Aug 28 Story tip: How Verizon could shake up Canada’s wireless market
Aug 27 UBC welcomes highly accomplished Class of 2017
Aug 27 Story tip: UBC Creative Writing teams up with Scotiabank Giller Prize
 Aug 26 UBC and China’s Chongqing government sign landmark academic cooperation agreement

Upcoming Event Highlights

Aug 31 UBC Farm Saturday Market
Aug 31 UBC Thunderbirds Football vs Calgary Dinos
Sep 1 AMS Firstweek Frosh Kit Pick-Up
Sep 2 AMS Firstweek Improv Show
Sep 3 SSRP Poster Competition & Graduate Student Welcome Reception
Sep 3 Developing Course Goals and Learning Objectives
Sep 3 School of Kinesiology Sponsored Lunch
Sep 4 Copyright and the Classroom: Understanding Appropriate Use of Copyrighted Material
Sep 4 AMS Firstweek Outdoor Yoga
Sep 5 Incorporating Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Resources into Your Teaching and Learning
Sep 5 CiTR 101.9 Open House
Sep 12 President’s Town Hall – Vancouver Campus
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

Computer Science professor wins outstanding paper award

The Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) has awarded Computer Science professor Alan Mackworth the 2013 AIJ Classic Paper Award for his paper “Consistency in Networks of Relations.”

The award recognizes outstanding papers published at least 15 years ago in the journal. Alan’s paper is considered immensely influential in establishing the field of constraint programming and guiding its research agenda.

For more information, click here.

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Master of Digital Media students receive $300,000 in scholarships

This September, 40 new students will start classes in the Master of Digital Media (MDM) program at the Centre for Digital Media in Great Northern Way campus, Vancouver.

The 2013/2014 cohort who are coming to Vancouver from China, India, USA and Canada were awarded a total of $300,000 in scholarships, an increase of 50 per cent over the previous year.

Dr. Richard Smith, MDM program director, projected that the scholarship fund will increase to at least $350,000 for the September 2014 start date.

MDM is Canada’s first professional graduate degree program in digital media. It is jointly accredited and awarded by UBC, Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. More than 160 students have graduated since the program was established in 2007. Click here for more information.

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“Arctic Adaptations” competition winners announced

SALA students Geoff Cox and Neil Aspinall recently won the NU Health “Arctic Adaptations” competition — a school-wide design competition for the delivery of health services in Nunavut. They will take part in Canada’s contribution to the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, joining a professional team from Pin Taylor Architects of Yellowknife and the Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre in Iqaluit in developing “Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15,” a territory-wide vision for architecture in service of health in the northern region.

Click here to read more.

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SCARP students develop action plan for climate change in Philippine province

Nine students from the School of Community and Regional Planning traveled to the Philippine province of Bulacan as part of the interactive Philippine Planning Studio Course taught by Prof. Leonora Angeles.

The students engaged with municipal and provincial planning staff and local residents to formulate climate change and climate-risk adaptation plans in urbanizing watershed and river basin areas in the country.

For more information, click here.

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Nursing alumna a finalist at European Society of Cardiology Congress

Sandra Lauck, PhD ’13, MSN ’07, RN and Clinical Director of Cardiac Services BC, is one of five finalists invited to present a paper in a competition at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress taking place in Amsterdam from August 31 to September 4.

The ESC Congress is the largest gathering of cardiovascular scientists in Europe. Lauck’s abstract was selected for the Nursing and Allied Professionals Investigator Award competition. To read more, click here.

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SALA grad wins international design competition

Master of Landscape Architecture graduate Matt Gibbs has won the multi-disciplinary design competition Coldscapes: New Visions for Cold Weather Cities, which examines the often overlooked potential of cold climate cities.

Gibbs’ project, titled The Freezeway, is an 11 kilometre year-round greenway aimed at transforming the way people live and move in the city of Edmonton, AB. It was originally his graduating design project and was completed in April with supervision by SALA faculty Ron Kellett and Bill Pechet and professor emeritus Doug Paterson.

Click here for more information.

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UBC AeroDesign to build unmanned aerial vehicle

Twenty-one years after UBC AeroDesign’s first showcase at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aero Design Competition, the team is taking a step in a completely new direction. Starting in September, UBC AeroDesign is merging with the UBC UAV Thunderbirds Team to build an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

UAV Thunderbirds members are from electrical engineering, computer engineering, and engineering physics, and so the merge is expected to foster knowledge sharing in an interdisciplinary environment. For more information, click here.

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Behind the scenes of the BC RCMP June 18 emergency exercise

A story on emergency planning at UBC has been published by Trek and UBC News. The B.C. RCMP conducted a successful campus shooter exercise on June 18 – the first of two large-scale UBC simulations this year designed to test RCMP and university protocols for protecting the community.

“This was an important opportunity to work with our partners – police, fire and ambulance – to test our ability to protect the safety of the UBC community,” said Ron Holton, Chief Risk Officer and head of UBC Risk Management Services. “The size and complexity of the event shows just how seriously we take the security of our community.”

The dramatic drill took four hours and unfolded in three buildings on south campus: Forest Sciences Centre, the H.R. MacMillan Building and Totem Park Residence. “Gunmen” moved from building to building, opening fire and taking hostages, as police clashed with them repeatedly, practising the latest tactics in engagement, evacuation and hostage negotiation.

The exercise was organized by the B.C. RCMP and involved more than 300 staff from the RCMP, Vancouver Fire and Rescue, B.C. Ambulance Services, St. John’s Ambulance and the Vancouver Police Department, and over 100 UBC volunteers.

A second large-scale exercise follows this October as UBC stages ShakeOut, its largest earthquake exercise to date. An extensive information campaign will offer tips for surviving a major earthquake and will culminate on October 17 at 10:17 a.m. when every UBC community member will be asked to practise what they have learned.

Click here to read the story. To make sure your contact information is up to date for UBC Alert, the university’s emergency notification system, visit: http://emergency.ubc.ca/UBCalert/

 

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SALA announces fall 2013 lecture series

The School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture’s fall lecture series will feature local, national and international practitioners spanning architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design, including:

Thomas Woltz – Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Annette Gigon – Gigon/Guyer, Zurich, Switzerland
Lola Sheppard – Lateral Office, Toronto
Phyllis Lambert – Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal
Greg Smallenberg, Kelty McKinnon and Alia Johnson – PFS Studio, Vancouver
Gregg Pasquarelli – SHoP Architects, New York City

The lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://sala.ubc.ca/news-and-events/news/sala-announces-fall-2013-lecture-series

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