In collaboration with the Public Scholars Initiative (PSI), the IKBLC Community Engagement & Programs division presents the “PhDs Go Public Research Talk Series,” which showcases doctoral students telling their community-engaged research stories in just under seven minutes.
In “Human(e) Interactions with the Environment,” nine PhD students from UBC’s Public Scholars Initiative engage the public by using the Pecha Kucha format to present on how their research is contributing to the public good, and making a change in the world. This year’s PSI themes include education, environment, culture, social justice, and health. Can’t make this event? It will be made online for viewing from the IKBLC webcast portal.
In collaboration with the Public Scholars Initiative (PSI), the IKBLC Community Engagement & Programs division presents the “PhDs Go Public Research Talk Series,” which showcases doctoral students telling their community-engaged research stories in just under seven minutes.
In “Explorations in Culture and Diversity,” eight PhD students from UBC’s Public Scholars Initiative engage the public by using the Pecha Kucha format to present on how their research is contributing to the public good, and making a change in the world. This year’s PSI themes include education, environment, culture, social justice, and health. Can’t make this event? It will be made online for viewing from the IKBLC webcast portal.
Offered on Saturdays in the fall and winter terms at the UBC Point Grey campus, One Day @ UBC single-day courses provide easy and affordable access to top experts in their field – and the small class size ensures ample opportunities for discussion. One Day @ UBC courses can be applied toward a UBC Certificate in Liberal Studies.
Sign up to UBC Continuing Studies’ email subscription list to receive valuable news and updates about its upcoming courses, too.
Freedom of Expression is a charter right in Canada and is a fundamental value of professional groups such as librarians, archivists and journalists, who promote transparency, public accountability and the broadest possible access to information. However, we are seeing an erosion of these values in public life, through steps to censor scientists and public servants, to retract, hide or ignore information that does not conform to partisan views, and to treat the free press as a public enemy. This is a symptom of “post-truth” politics, in which sentiment and personal belief have more influence than facts, and facts are openly manipulated. As fake news, Orwellian newspeak and “alternative facts” flood our media streams, how do we continue to make sense of our world? How do we hold public figures accountable for their actions?
This open mic session invites the UBC community to speak up on what freedom of expression means in this post-truth era. Bring your thoughts, arguments, poems, and stories – everyone is welcome!
Event Details
When: February 28th, 2017 12:30-1:45 PM
Where: Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 2nd floor foyer space
Facilitator(s): Milena Constanda, Erin Fields
Register for this event through your UBC Campus-Wide Login here.
As scholars, we have a critical responsibility to uphold principles such as intellectual honesty, rigour, and open communication. Those who work outside the academy, or whose scholarship spans the academic and non-academic realms, have additional responsibilities and often face more complex or different ethical dilemmas and conflicting moral imperatives in their work. This workshop will feature three experts speaking to the ethical dimensions of scholarship in different contexts: in work involving community engagement or partnership, in the health field, and in the work of ‘public intellectuals’ from any sector.
This event happened on February 16, 2017.
Panelist Speakers
Susan Porter (Dean & Vice-Provost, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies)
Simon Donner (UBC Geography)
Nina Preto (Ethicist, Provincial Health Services Authority)
Karen Bartlett (School of Population and Public Health)
Select Books and Articles Available at UBC Library
Kipnis, K. (01/01/1999). Ethics: The responsible scholar: Ethical considerations in the humanities and social sciences University of Chicago Press. [Link]
Patterson, B. (2000). Liberal education: An ethos of learning: Forming ethical scholars through experiential education Association of American Colleges. [Link]
The sequencing of the human genome has been hailed as a scientific breakthrough in that it has opened the human genetic blueprint to investigations of all questions ranging from human origins to the understanding of health and complex diseases. As a result of this revolutionary sequencing of human genomes, our knowledge about how and why we differ from each other as well as how interactions between genes and culture have shaped our community is now more clearly understood. How can this knowledge be used to improve human health through disease prevention, diagnosis and personalized treatment approaches? What does the Genomics Revolution mean for you and your health? What is the potential for future generations?
Join UBC’s Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, in partnership with alumni UBC, to hear from five top UBC researchers and learn about the work they are doing to accelerate the genomics revolution which is advancing their fields.
Dr. Jehannine Austin – Genetic counseling: the key to unlocking the potential health and economic benefits of human genomics?
Dr. Martin Dawes – It is not just the genetics that is difficult – the translation to everyday practice is really hard.
Dr. Howard Lim – Personalized Care in Oncology – Pitfalls and Successes
Dr. Corey Nislow – Only in the Light of Evolution: Cells, Organisms, and Pharmacology
Dr. Chris Overall – Can Proteomics Fill the Gap between Genomics and Phenotypes? The Human Proteome Project.
Speaker Biographies
Dr. Catalina Lopez-Correa
Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President, Sectors, Genome BC
In January 2016, Dr. Catalina Lopez-Correa joined Genome BC as Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President, Sectors. With over 18 years of international experience in both the academic and private sectors, Dr. Lopez-Correa brings her deep understanding of genomics to the Genome BC leadership team.
Dr. Lopez-Correa holds an MD from UPB University in Colombia, a Masters in Genetics from Paris VII/Pasteur Institute and a PhD in Medical Biosciences-Genetics from KULeuven in Belgium. Most recently she was the Vice-President and CSO, Scientific Affairs, at Genome Quebec where she was instrumental in developing competitive teams for national and provincial research projects, and raising the profile of Genome Quebec on the global stage.
Previous experience also includes a role as Senior Scientist with Eli Lilly and Company. During Dr. Lopez-Correa’s time at Eli Lilly, she was part of the Pharmacogenomics and Translational Medicine Group in charge of discovering and validating genetic/genomic biomarkers in different therapeutic areas (oncology, cardio-metabolic and neurosciences). She also helped develop the company’s tailored therapeutics and personalized medicine strategy. Dr. Lopez-Correa also held the position of Head of Cytogenomics laboratory at deCODE genetics where she developed screening strategies to detect genomic rearrangements. She has also worked for two different American biotech companies in the UK (Genomica and Informax).
Since 2002, Dr. Lopez-Correa has served as evaluator for large multinational projects funded by the European Commission, the IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiatives) and the NIH and has been recognized by several awards nationally and internationally. As part of her commitment to international development, Dr. Lopez-Correa funded the not for profit organization ODNS (Organisation pour le Développement avec des Nouvelles Solidarités) in 2012 and has been involved in several initiatives aimed at demonstrating the impact of genomics in developing countries.
Dr. Jehannine Austin
Associate Professor, UBC Department of Medical Genetics; Canada Research Chair in Translational Psychiatric Genomics; Acting Head, Department of Psychiatry, UBC Faculty of Medicine
Genetic counseling: the key to unlocking the potential health and economic benefits of human genomics?
The conditions that are most common in humans (e.g. cancer, psychiatric illness, diabetes, heart disease) are complex – that is, they arise as a result of interactions between genetic and environmental influences. Lifestyle modifications (e.g. quitting smoking, exercise, nutrition) can reduce the risk for these conditions, but studies show that providing people with information about their genetic risk does not reliably provoke adoption of healthy behaviours that can reduce risk. This talk will focus on the role of genetic counseling in personalized prevention approaches to common complex disease by empowering people to act on genomic risk information to engage in risk reduction behaviours.
BIO: Jehannine completed her BSc (Hons, Biochemistry) at Bath University, and her PhD in Neuropsychiatric Genetics at the University of Wales College of Medicine in the UK before completing training as a Genetic Counselor at UBC in 2003. She was first appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in 2007, and in the Department of Medical Genetics in 2008, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012.
She holds/has held multiple external salary awards including a CIHR New Investigator Award, a Michael Smith Career Investigator Award, and a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair, and received CIHR’s 2007 Maud Menten New Investigator Award. She is co-author of the book “How to talk with families about genetics and psychiatric illness” (W.W Norton, 2011), Graduate Advisor to the UBC Genetic Counseling program, and a Board Certified Genetic Counselor.
Dr. Martin Dawes
Director & Co-Founder, Personalized Medicine Institute; Head, Family Practice, UBC Faculty of Medicine
It is not just the genetics that is difficult – the translation to everyday practice is really hard.
There is a journey of using genetic tests to avoid adverse reactions to drugs used commonly in Family Practice. More than half consultations in Family Practice involve complex decisions about medication, adding a genetic test makes things more complex. Dr Dawes and his team had to go back to the drawing board and rediscover how to help patients and professionals identify the safe effective drugs for the individual person.
BIO: Dr. Dawes is the Head of the Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia (UBC), and Cofounder of the Personalized Medicine Institute. He started his clinical practice as a family physician in Oxford. Following the completion of his PhD in 1992, he helped develop a Master’s program in Evidence Based Health Care, which allows clinicians to engage in research. He has directed the UK Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford and was the head of family practice at McGill University before coming to UBC in 2010. His research includes genomics in primary care and lifestyle interventions to prevent diabetes.
Dr. Dawes is currently leading a new research project entitled “The Implementation of Pharmacogenomics in Primary Care in British Columbia”. This novel project is valued at over $720,000, and is being funded through Genome BC’s User Partnership Program, Rx&D’s Health Research Foundation and other partners. The project will also link in with TELUS Health, the largest electronic medical record (EMR) vendor in Canada.
Dr. Howard Lim
Medical Oncologist, BC Cancer Agency; Clinical Physician Professor, Medical Oncology Division, UBC Faculty of Medicine
Personalized Care in Oncology – Pitfalls and Successes
The use of whole genome sequencing technology to understand tumor biology can be used in the hopes of finding actionable targets for patients with cancer. Dr Lim will provide an overview about how the use of this information can lead to success and how we can learn from the failures.
BIO: Lim is a Medical Oncologist at the BC Cancer Agency Vancouver Centre, specializing in Gastrointestinal Cancer. He is the Program Director of the Medical Oncology Training Program and is the Chair of the GI Tumor Group.
Dr Lim is also an active member of the GI Outcomes Unit, and the Personalized Onco-genomics Program – a clinical research initiative that’s embedding genomic sequencing into the diagnostic and treatment planning for patients with incurable cancers.
Prior to going to medical school, he was fortunate to do research at the BC Cancer Agency Research Centre under Dr. Marcel Bally, in the Department of Advanced Therapeutics. One of the great things that he witnessed was how research could be translated over to patient care seamlessly.
Dr. Lim completed his training in Medical Oncology at the BC Cancer Agency and then did additional training in Gastrointestinal Malignancies at the Oregon Health Sciences University, before coming to the BC Cancer Agency in 2008.
Dr. Corey Nislow
Associate Professor, UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Only in the Light of Evolution: Cells, Organisms, and Pharmacology
At its core, all of biology can be considered a combination of the forces of natural selection, organism fitness and the extraordinary results required to meet these two challenges. For the past two decades Dr. Nislow’s lab has sought to understand how genotype is revealed in phenotype; by using diverse models from yeast to man and every environment imaginable. This talk will describe the lessons we have learned from such models and how we are applying them to patients.
BIO: Dr. Corey Nislow’s laboratory uses cutting edge tools to address this central question: how can we understand the biological commonalities in all of the life sciences; from embryonic development, to the spread of infectious diseases to better ways to treat cancer. Each of these disciplines, and in fact all of biology, can be explained in the context of competition, interaction and evolution. Therefore his lab studies the interface between genes and the environment using parallel genome-wide screens, high throughput cell-based assays and next generation sequencing of microbial and human populations. He and his scientific partner, Dr. Guri Giaever shift between model systems to understand how genes and drugs interact during normal and pathological states. Most recently, his lab is exploring how laboratory experiments can co-opt evolutionary processes to understand drug action.
He enjoys teaching all aspects of biotechnology, genomics and drug discovery for undergraduate and graduate students. Corey completed a BA in developmental biology at New College and a PhD in cell and molecular biology at the University of Colorado. He was also an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow. He led discovery teams at two biotechnology companies (MJ Research and Cytokinetics Inc., in the San Francisco Bay Area) and at Stanford University. Prior to joining UBC, he was associate professor at the University of Toronto and director of the Donnelly Sequencing Centre.
Dr. Chris Overall
Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, Protease Proteomics & Systems Biology; Professor, UBC Faculty of Dentistry
Can Proteomics Fill the Gap between Genomics and Phenotypes? The Human Proteome Project.
How can only 20,061 human genes encode the complexity of humans when similar numbers of similar genes also encode worms and flys? Mapping and sequencing genes is just the start of this answer. Genes encode proteins and it is proteins that are responsible for forming the cells and tissues of humans. Further, proteins orchestrate the complexity of coordinated signaling between cells and organs that keep us healthy. Dr. Overall will discuss the huge diversity of protein forms, now known as “proteoforms”, and how they lead to the incredible complexity of human cells and tissues. It is through understanding proteoforms that disease mechanisms can be deciphered, new drug targets validated, and accurate diagnostic tests devised that will lead to new medical interventions to treat disease early. By reducing disease and its detrimental outcomes, proteomic biomarkers hold enormous promise to revolutionize diagnostics and personalized medicine ensuring sustainable health care costs.
BIO: Proteases are nature’s biological molecular scissors. Being involved in the fate of every protein—from protein synthesis and maturation, to function changing adaptations in response to changing needs of tissues and cells, and finally in protein removal, proteases are essential to maintaining healthy cells and tissues. Yet, with the good comes the bad. Proteases can dramatically worsen disease and cause tissue destruction leading to disability, pain and death in some diseases like cancer. Thus, Dr. Overall has a long-standing fascination in proteases from his undergraduate days to now. Indeed, he is a Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Protease Proteomics and Systems Biology and holds a seven-year $5.55M CIHR Foundation Grant to investigate proteases.
Dr. Overall completed his undergraduate BDS, Honors Science and Masters degrees at the University of Adelaide, South Australia; his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto; and was a MRC Centennial Fellow in his post-doctoral work with Dr. Michael Smith, UBC, learning protein engineering. On Sabbaticals in 1997-1998 he was a Visiting Senior Scientist at British Biotech Pharmaceuticals, Oxford, UK; and again in 2004/2008 he was a Visiting Senior Scientist at the Expert Protease Platform, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Basel, Switzerland; and in 2010-2012 was an External Senior Fellow and is now an Honorary Professor, at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Germany.
With over 15,500 citations for his 237 papers he has an h index of 67 and this has been recognized by numerous awards including the 2002 CIHR Scientist of the Year, the UBC Killam Senior Researcher Award (Science) 2005, and several life time achievement awards. He was the Chair of the 2003 Matrix Metalloproteinase Gordon Research Conference and the 2010 Protease Gordon Research Conference. More recently his interests are evolving to deciphering immune deficiencies and chronic inflammatory diseases by the use of proteomics and degradomics, a term he coined. He was elected as Co-Chair of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) Chromosome–Centric Human Proteome Project (C-HPP) in 2014 and was recently elected in 2016 to the Executive Committee of HUPO.
Select Books and Articles Available at UBC Library
Current issues in molecular biology: The genome revolution in vaccine research (2004). Caister Academic Press. doi:10.21775/cimb.006.017 [Link]
Hillenmeyer, M., Fung, E., Wildenhain, J., Pierce, S., Hoon, S., Lee, W., . . . Giaever, G. (2008). The Chemical Genomic Portrait of Yeast: Uncovering a Phenotype for All Genes. Science,320(5874), 362-365. [Link]
Hofker, M. H., Fu, J., & Wijmenga, C. (10/01/2014). Biochimica et biophysica acta. molecular basis of disease: The genome revolution and its role in understanding complex diseases Elsevier. [Link]
Peixoto, R. D., Renouf, D., & Lim, H. (2014). A population based analysis of prognostic factors in advanced biliary tract cancer. Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology, 5(6), 428–432. http://doi.org/10.3978/j.issn.2078-6891.2014.081 [Link]
Does the metaphor for coming out work out cross-culturally? What does or can family look like to LGBTQ Asians? What does it mean and how can one be an ally to the LGBTQ+ Asian community?
This month’s ACAM Dialogue is focused on LGBTQ+ and non-heteronormative sexualities as well as what it means to be a queer Asian Canadian. UBC students will share their experiences of navigating school, life, and their communities as an LGBTQ Asian, followed by a brief Q+A and an opportunity for attendees to engage in group discussions about current themes and topics within the Asian Canadian community. Light snacks will be provided and it is free to RSVP.
Justin Lam (He/him)
Justin is a fourth-year student of French and Asian Studies. His academic interests lie in South Asian linguistics and their ties to expressions of religious (particularly Muslim) identity in the subcontinent. He is a big Mariah Carey fan and highly prefers dogs over cats.
Chandima Silva (He/him)
Chandima is Third year Asian Area Studies student who is interested in the intersections of religion, ethnicity and nationalism. He is also the project assistant at the CISAR. He loves Shyam Selvadurai, ice cream and cats (and dogs).
Yulanda Lui
Yulanda is a queer Chinese settler born on Anishinaabe territory under the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Agreement. They are in her final year of the Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice program with a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration studies. She is a member of the student committee for the ACAM dialogues on sexual violence, a facilitator of QTBIMPOC space, and a youth organizer in Chinatown. A Virgo sun/moon/rising, Yulanda is a fierce believer in collectivity and possibility, and can be found learning and playing in spaces of magic, community, and utopia.
This event will be taking place on the traditional, unceded, ancestral homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) First Nation. We recognize that sexual violence plays a key role in colonial and gendered violence, and continues to affect Indigenous communities. As the land which UBC is situated on was taken without consent, we ask settlers to consider what it means to be good guests in the spaces they navigate.
Along the same line of thinking through space, we are prioritizing the ACAM Dialogue as a student and survivor-centric event that centers Indigenous and POC students (particularly Asian Canadian student communities). Please be mindful of this if you plan on attending. If you have any questions or concerns about what it means to be an ally, feel free to contact acam.events@ubc.ca.
Accessibility Info
Please let us know if you have any special dietary needs. If you have questions or other accessibility needs, please email acam.events@ubc.ca
This event is organized by the ACAM Dialogues: Extending the Conversation on Sexual Violence in Asian Communities on Campus and Beyond project. These dialogues examine the intersections of race, gender, and violence, especially as they impact Asian student communities and open up spaces for students to share experiences and resources, build analyses, and discuss strategies of organizing against sexual and other forms of violence. The series will culminate in a public symposium in Spring 2017 to bring these conversations to a wider audience at UBC and beyond.
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. How can education go beyond the classroom to reach the lives of the public? In the first event of the 2017 PhDs Go Public Research Talk Series, seven PhD students from UBC’s Public Scholars Initiative have seven minutes to talk about their education research, and how it can make a positive contribution in and out of the university.
This event happened on 26 January 2017.
Panel Speakers
Ron Darvin(Teaching English as a Second Language) examines how high school students of different class backgrounds in Vancouver develop diverse digital practices. His goal is to contribute to educational policies that enable equitable digital instruction for the new BC curriculum. Ron collaborates with the Vancouver School Board and is affiliated with the UBC Digital Literacy Centre.
Sereana Naepi(Educational Studies) focuses on systematic ways to address inequality in higher education. Focusing on Indigenous women’s experiences as staff Sereana hopes to reveal the ways in which universities block change that can benefit Indigenous communities, so that universities can change their practices and deliver on their promises to Indigenous communities.
Tak Ishikawa(Experimental Medicine) uses decision science to develop solutions to social issues, particularly in public health. Using decision theories as instruments, Tak develops a public education campaign on road safety, with particular attention to common misconceptions on the use of seat belts and booster seats.
Miranda Meents (Botany) bridges the study of how cells work, with how to teach undergraduate students how cells work. Miranda is working to improve the student learning experience, by applying the findings of educational research to real-world biology classrooms.
Francois Lachapelle (Sociology) uses social network analysis to show the development and stabilization of specific networks of PhDs exchange between domestic and foreign universities over the last 40 years. Such work will allow the critical assessment of the various forms of internationalization displayed by Canadian universities.
Melissa Guzman (Zoology) believes that undergraduate students in biology need to be prepared for their future. One skill set many of them are missing is basic level programming. Melissa’s research is focused on re-designing and testing statistics courses to incorporate a programming language using innovative instructional practices. She hopes to change how biostatistics is taught.
Hassan Halawa (Electrical & Computer Engineering) is aware that cyber-criminals are using evermore sophisticated and largely automated attacks. Inspired by lessons learned from public health, Hassan’s research puts forward the idea of identifying vulnerable user populations and, based on this information, creating an additional layer of defense that will help limit the spread, and cost, of cyber-attacks. His work will help educate vulnerable user populations against automated attacks.
Select Books and Articles Available at UBC Library
Baloy, N. J.-K. (2008, August 25). Exploring the potential for native language revitalization in an urban context : language education in Vancouver (T). University of British Columbia. [Link]
Haig-Brown, C. (2014). Taking Control: Power and Contradiction in First Nations Adult Education. Vancouver: UBC Press. [Link]
Johnson, L. (2007). Multicultural education policies in canada and the united states UBC Press. [Link]
Lahache, L., Castellano, M. B., & Davis, L. (05/14/2014). Aboriginal education : Fulfilling the promise UBC Press. [Link]
This year BCLA is pleased to announce that the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre is providing funding up to a $2400 to help with the travel and hotel costs for up to six BC Library Conference delegates from rural and northern libraries.
Applicants are asked to provide a short written piece articulating how the Irving K. Barber support will benefit them and their library. For those applicants receiving this support BCLA will add an Alice Bacon Award to cover the full conference registration.
Please submit your online application by noon on Thursday February 24thand the application form can be foundhere.
We are excited to announce that the corridor and atrium on the 3rd and 4th floor of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre will receive upgrades and renovations starting from Tuesday, Febrary 7, 2017. The Routine Capital funding from the Ministry of Advanced Education has been made available for this project to replace the flooring in the corridors and carpet in the atrium spaces.
Renovation Details:
Renovations: February 7 – March 31, 2017
Locations: 3rd and 4th Floor Corridors and Atrium
Floor Plans
3rd floor corridors and the Qualicum Room
4th floor corridors and the Golden Jubilee Room
The corridors will continue to be open and available for access. Contractors will be on-site and will begin to remove furniture in the corridors of the 3rd and 4th floor. During this time, study spaces in those corridors will not be available. We understand that this timing is not ideal for renovations, as students may be impacted. However, every effort will be made to maintain available study space for students and minimize disruptions to building users.