Meet our scholars

Apply Public Scholars Award

The PSI Network consists of 347 doctoral students and PhDs from across the full range of disciplines at UBC.

Below you can navigate their profiles based on year of scholarship, faculty, theme; read about their research; and watch brief videos of their talks. 

Nance Cunningham

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD)
Untold Stories of True Strength: Bringing voices of patients into health professionals' education

Cristina Rubino

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Rehabilitation Sciences (PhD)
Uncovering unseen links between visual and motor impairment after stroke.

Sarah-Nelle Jackson

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD)
Getting (Virtually) Medieval: Live-Streaming as Public Scholarship

Jeffrey Hicks

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD)
Using large-scale administrative data to study the long-term causes and consequences of social assistance use

Amanda Johnson

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry (PhD)
Bioplastic from agroforestry waste: end-of-life management

Esteban Morales

Colombia
Doctor of Philosophy in Language and Literacy Education (PhD)
Reimagining violence on social media: promoting critical media literacy and peace education in Colombia

Ine Beljaars

Netherlands
Doctor of Philosophy in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (PhD)
Toward a cultural politics of Afro-Latin partner dancing in the Netherlands

Jennifer Murray

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD)
Conducting community-based research to investigate risk factors associated with a high rate of preterm birth in a First Nations community in British Columbia (BC)

Michael Schwan

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD)
Gitksan Neologism Formation: The Future of Gitksan With Roots in the Past

Jason Winikoff

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Music, Emphasis Ethnomusicology (PhD)
The Music of the Masks: Zambian Luvale Percussion, Makishi, and Timbral Aesthetics

Shota Iwasaki

Japan
Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD)
Fostering Awareness of Marginalized People through Literature: A Case Study of Critical Literary Pedagogy by a Marginalized Instructor

Jelena Todorovic

Serbia
Doctor of Philosophy in Classics (PhD)
Disability Theatre and Roman Comedy

Monica Shank Lauwo

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Language and Literacy Education (PhD)
Stories of lives and literacies: Social class, translanguaging and imagined futures of Tanzanian children

Lara Sarlak

Turkey
Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD)
Infrastructures of the Displaced: a case study of Istanbul

Michelle Hak Hepburn

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD)
Thinking with trees to see the forest: Huayruro trees and deforestation in San Martin, Peru

Matthew Tomkinson

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre (PhD)
Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade: A Podcast

Sara Press

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD)
Diagnosing Disparities: Unsettling the Anglo-Colonial Standards of Health and Normality in Canada and the United States

Fiona Beaty

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology (PhD)
Marine resilience in the Anthropocene: understanding the adaptive capacity of marine socio-ecological systems to change

Pranav Shrestha

Nepal
Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical Engineering (PhD)
Affordable and portable microscopy for screening sickle cell disease in rural/remote communities

Gaylean Davies

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)
Women, Water + Empowerment: Investigating connections and disconnections in small water enterprises in Ghana

Roger Yu-Hsiang Lo

Taiwan
Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD)
From annotation to assessment: Tools for sign language phonetic and phonological research

Verena Rossa-Roccor

Germany
Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)
Academics as activists? Leveraging political knowledge-to-action strategies to improve ecological determinants of health through climate policy

Natalie Payer

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry (PhD)
Shining a Light on Energy Injustice: Solar Energy Access and Urban Energy Poverty in the United States

Maya Daurio

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD)
Mapping Against the Grain: An Ethnographic Approach to Digital Language Cartography

Saguna Shankar

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD)
Caring for Information Practices: An Inquiry into Visions of Data, Digital Technologies, and Migration

Preetish Kakoty

India
Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering (PhD)
Impacts of M9 Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquakes and Basin Amplification on the Seismic Risk of Vancouver’s Tall Reinforced Concrete Shear Wall Buildings and Implications on Community Resilience

Gabriela Barragan Altamirano

Ecuador
Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry (PhD)
Planning forests for the future: incorporating multiple goals in forest restoration initiatives

Kalysha Closson

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD)
Unpacking gender and relationship power inequities to advance sexual and reproductive health among young South African women and men in the time of COVID-19 : A youth-engaged study

Kate Kysow

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)
Clean-outs as a strategy for community agencies to address hoarding

Bonnie Tulloch

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD)
Do the ends justify the memes? Exploring the relationship between youth, internet memes, and digital citizenship

Anne Bertrand

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD)
The grammar of scalarity in Ktunaxa

Khadija Anjum

Pakistan
Doctor of Philosophy in Planning (PhD)
Planning for food security of low-income groups amid rising food price volatility: A gendered analysis

Jacob Stubbs

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD)
CoBrA Community Brain Art Initiative: Co-created brain health promotion with the Downtown Eastside community

Kelsey Timler

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD)
Participatory Action Research to Support Food Justice Programming for Justice-Involved Women and Children

Leah Shipton

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD)
The governing dynamics of global health multistakeholder partnerships

Lois Evans

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD)
More Zeros, Less Ones: Digital Storage Management, Big Data, and Climate Change

Benjamin Hopkins

United States of America
Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano (DMA)
Performance & Protest: The Political Pianist

Madison Stevens

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)
‘Righting' Conservation: Exploring Pathways for Realizing Stewardship Rights in Protected Areas

Kimberly Sharpe

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD)
Geographic variation in healthcare spending and utilization and its impact on return to work for injured workers

Isobel Mouat

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)
Teaching science beyond content: introducing what science is and how it is done to first-year students

Wilson Mendes

Brazil
Doctor of Philosophy in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems (PhD)
Healing Synergies: Indigenous Land-based Pedagogies and Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the City

Susan Sechrist

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD)
Go Figure: Writing Numerate Literary Fiction

Max Chewinski

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD)
Public Participation and Disaster Governance: Procedural Justice in Rural British Columbia

Christine Ou

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD)
Behavioral-educational sleep support for parents with postpartum mood disturbances

Ildiko Kovacs

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum Studies (PhD)
Participatory Planning Pedagogy: How Children's Engagement in Community Planning Supports Environmental and Sustainability Education

Janina Krabbe

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD)
Stories of Resistance: identifying sites of change towards decolonizing research practices with women affected by violence

Francisco Javier Gómez López

Colombia
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD)
Territorial Affirmation: Land Autonomy, Sustainable production and conservation practices in Colombian páramo highland communities

April Mazzuca

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD)
The Cedar Project: Evaluating a culturally-safe program to support the delivery of optimal treatment of hepatitis C among Indigenous people who use drugs in British Columbia.

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