Seventeen doctoral students at UBC have received a Vanier Canada Graduate Fellowship, and 10 postdoctoral fellows have received a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. The announcement was made on September 14 by the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, on behalf of the Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Health. Across Canada, there were 166 new Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship recipients and 70 new Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship recipients, for a total investment of $34.7 million.
These young researchers are working on subjects that span the health sciences, the natural sciences and engineering, and the social sciences and humanities, from Rozlyn Boutin's research into how gut microbiata might influence childhood asthma to Melanie Chanona's investigation of wave patterns in the Arctic Ocean, to Nathan TeBokkel's study of poet-farmers and the modern aesthetics of food.
“We are honoured to celebrate all of the talented recipients of this year’s Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships. We believe in the potential of the next generation of researchers whose curiosity and ambition is driving us towards a bolder, brighter future for all people. Today’s investment demonstrates our government’s commitment to supporting researchers as they gain the skills and experiences needed for the jobs and opportunities of tomorrow,” said Duncan.
UBC's newest Vanier Scholars are:
Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
- Leanne Amitzi, Medical Genetics, DDX11 as a Potential Synthetic Lethal Target for Cancer Therapeutics in Cells with Cohesion Mutations
- Rozlyn Boutin, MD/PhD, Mechanistic Elucidation of the Asthma-Protective and -Predictive Effects Conferred by Specific Members of the Gut Microbiota in Early Life
- Celestin Hategeka, School of Population and Public Health, Improving Access and Quality of Emergency Care for Newborns and Children in Rwanda
- Kaitlyn Jaffe, Sociology, Social Impacts of Biomedical HIV Prevention: PrEP Implementation among People who Inject Drugs
- Mohammad Karamouzian, School of Population and Public Health, Early Injecting Careers: Implications for Health, HIV Risk Behaviours and Clinical Care
- Dennis Louie, Rehabilitation Sciences, Exoskeleton for post-Stroke Recovery of Ambulation (ExStRA)
- Paulina Piesik, MD/PhD, Using the Skin Immune System to Induce Systemic Tolerance
- Michael Skinnider, MD/PhD, Understanding Human Biology and Disease Through Tissue-Specific Protein-Protein Interaction Networks
Funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Kylynda Bauer, Microbiology & Immunology, Diet and the Gut Microbiota Modulate the Host Nervous System
- Melanie Chanona, Oceanography, Spatial and Temporal Variability of Internal Waves and Mixing in the Canadian Arctic Ocean
- Santiago David, Zoology, Paramo Bird Communities: Understanding a Poorly Known Andean Ecosystem Under Increasing Risk of Extinction
- Roseanna Gamlen-Greene, Forestry, Conserving Species in a Dynamic World: Prioritizing Conservation Land for an Amphibian (Rana Aurora) Using a Life Stage, Multi-Species Occupancy Distribution Modeling Approach
- Ramy Hussein, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Epileptic Seizure Prediction using Intracranial EEG Signals
- Yasha Pushak, Computer Science, Algorithm Configuration for Improved Empirical Run-Time Scaling to Solve Huge Computational Problems
Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
- Tianyou Qui, Psychology, The Progression From Suicidal Ideation to Attempts: Understanding its Temporal Course, Predictors, and Pathways
- LJ Slovin, Curriculum Studies, Non-Binary Youth Navigating Their Relationship to Schooling
- Nathan TeBokkel, English, Poet-Farmers and Problems of (Agri)culture and Aesthetics
The list of UBC's new Banting Fellows is available on postdocs.ubc.ca.