UBC This Week 4-Dec-2014

 

Recent UBC Media Releases

Dec 4 New federal funding to enhance Canadian post-secondary research
Dec 3 Universal prescription drug coverage more cost-effective, improves seniors’ health outcomes: study
Dec 3 World-class tennis returns to UBC courts
Dec 3 Check less to reduce email stress
Dec 2 Elevated toxic metals at community garden site raise concerns: UBC research

Upcoming Event Highlights

Dec 4 Arresting Hope book signing and reading
Dec 4 Dr. Dwayne Donald Presents on Homo Economicus and Curriculum for Survival
Dec 5 Candle Vigil
Dec 5 The 2014 John Howes Lecture in Japanese Studies
Dec 6 Renew You: Self-Care and Burnout Prevention
Dec 6 Thinking About Deafness: Connecting communities from Guatemala, Uganda, and Canada
Dec 7 Physics in the Kitchen – 11th Annual Faraday Science Show
Dec 7 Mr. Peanut Campaign for Mayor exhibition at Koerner Library
Dec 8 Recording and sharing videos in Connect
Dec 9 Panic to Power: Build Your Confidence
Dec 9 Electroacoustic Music
Dec 10 Connect, Camtasia, Copyrights and Course Reserves Drop-In
Dec 10 Managing Effective Collaborative Research Teams
Dec 11 Indigenous Nations, Traditional Values and Modern Systems
Dec 11 UBC Laptop Orchestra: Can we eat fish in the future? Different tales from the world’s oceans
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

Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion appointed

The Board of Governors has accepted the President’s recommendation to appoint Sara-Jane Finlay as the new Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion for a five-year term commencing March 16, 2015.

Finlay is currently Director of the Office of the Vice-Provost, Faculty and Academic Life at the University of Toronto. She has extensive experience in academic policy and planning, and champions the principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion in all aspects of the university’s academic mission. She has developed leadership programs for senior academic administrators, policies and programs for faculty and staff.

Gurdeep Parhar served as Acting Associate Vice-President Equity and Inclusion for the past two years.

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Can Facebook make you a better driver?

An international team of engineers that includes electrical and computer engineering professor Victor Leung and his research team have created a SAfeDJ app that combines the diagnostic system in a car with cloud computing and social networking.

SAfeDJ recommends music to listen to while you drive based on your preferences and current driving conditions. It can also incorporate real-time traffic and weather data and health related data (ie. heart rate sensor). SAfeDJ also has the capacity for real-time sharing of music selections with traveling friends in similar moods through social networks. This ingenious integration of data was a finalist at the 2014 MobiCom mobile app competition. Click here for more information.

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Computer science prof elected Fellow of the AAAI

Computer science professor Holger Hoos has been elected as a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Hoos was elected for his contributions to the field of automated reasoning and the development of widely used methods for algorithm selection and configuration. Each year, only five to 10 new fellows are elected worldwide. To date, there are a total of 14 AAAI Fellows in Canada, three (Hoos, David Poole, and Alan Mackworth) of whom are from UBC Department of Computer Science. Click here for more.

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Vancouver School of Economics prof wins Killam teaching prize

Vancouver School of Economics’ associate professor Vadim Marmer is the winner of a 2013-2014 UBC Killam Teaching Prize. The prestigious and competitive prize recognizes all aspects of outstanding teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Marmer has taught nearly 1,000 economics students at UBC since 2005. The award was presented at the Nov. 27 convocation ceremony.

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Economics student wins Rhodes Scholarship

Logan Graham, an honours student at UBC’s Vancouver School of Economics, has won a Rhodes Scholarship. Graham is in his final year of his B.A. in Economics and will continue his studies in economics at Oxford. The Rhodes Scholarships are postgraduate awards supporting exceptional students from around the world to study at the University of Oxford.

Graham started the Children’s Arthritis Foundation with his family when he was seven to help other children living with juvenile arthritis. He founded the UBC Social Enterprise Club in his first year at UBC. Last year, he launched Yunus&Youth, a fellowship that pairs young social entrepreneurs anywhere in the world with experts to mentor, train and connect them to a support network. To read more, click here.

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UBC alum wins Governor-General’s Award in nonfiction

UBC alumnus Michael John Harris (B.A English, Honours ‘02) has won a Governor-General’s Award in nonfiction for his book The End of Absence: Reclaiming what we have lost in a world of constant connection. Harris looks at the impact that the digital era is having on our way of life and on how we think. He argues that because our technological devices allow us to be constantly connected, we live in a state of distraction and are losing our ability to simply sit alone with our thoughts. He draws on interviews with numerous experts, and also describes trying to reclaim that space of solitude and contemplation in his own life, with mixed results. Click here for more.

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Celebrating 10 years of training more doctors in B.C.

2014 marks the ten year anniversary of the launch of UBC’s distributed MD Undergraduate Program.
To mark this occasion, the Faculty of Medicine has launched a website — bcmd10.med.ubc.ca — that chronicles the program’s history, challenges and successes. Click here to visit the site.

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UBC pharmacy clinic wins national award for innovation

The Pharmacists Clinic at UBC was honoured with the Pharmacy Innovation award at this year’s Commitment to Care and Service Awards, the national awards program hosted by Pharmacy Practice+ and Drugstore Canada. The clinic opened in November 2013 as Canada’s first university-affiliated, licensed, pharmacist-led patient care clinic.

Pharm Sci alumnus Aaron Sihota, (BSc, Pharm’14) was recognized with a Commitment to Care & Service Award for Student Leadership. As president of the Pharmacy Undergraduate Society, Sihota advocated tirelessly for the student perspective both within the university and in the community at large. Click here for more.

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SALA announces $50,000 Margolese National Design for Living Prize

The School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture has announced Vikram Bhatt as the winner of the 2014 Margolese National Design for Living Prize. Bhatt, a professor at McGill University’s School of Architecture, is recognized for his decades-long work on minimum cost housing and more recent work on urban agriculture. The $50,000 prize is awarded annually to a Canadian who has made and continues to make outstanding contributions to the development or improvement of living environments for Canadians of all economic classes. Click here for more.

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