Be a hero; Chair a Doctoral Exam!

Among the most critical elements of any doctoral exam, from the perspective of those who coordinate these complexities, is the search for a strong Chair. Yet this search serves as a perennial challenge to the Doctoral Examinations team. We consider ourselves very lucky indeed if we issue fewer than 10 invitations before confirming 1 chair for an upcoming exam. It is not at all unusual in some disciplines to invite 30 or more chairs before some gracious faculty member agrees to help us out.

If you would like to contribute your time and wisdom to UBC’s doctoral exams:

  • Please have a look at the list of upcoming exams below and if one interests you, please send us an email to graduate.doctoral@ubc.ca
  • Or send us an email detailing the areas that interest you and days/times that you might be generally available and we'll contact you as new exams are scheduled. Again, send an email to graduate.doctoral@ubc.ca

 

Please bear in mind that the chair cannot be affiliated with the candidate’s graduate program, or a member of the supervisor's department..

Thursday, August 14, 2025 9:00 AM - Room 200

Tamara Ukwu
(Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice)
Protection of Children in Times of Crisis: Evacuation of Children from Children's Home "Ljubica Ivezić" during the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995)
Supervisor(s): Professor Pilar Riano-Alcala

Thursday, August 21, 2025 9:00 AM - Room 200

Christian Weilbach
(Computer Science)
Structured Amortized Variational Inference
Supervisor(s): Professor Frank Wood

Thursday, August 21, 2025 12:30 PM - Room 200

NUHA ALOMAR
(Dentistry)
Supervision and Autonomy in Periodontics Surgical Education: A Grounded Theory Study at an Academic Institution
Supervisor(s): Professor HsingChi Von Bergmann

Thursday, August 21, 2025 2:00 PM - 240, West Mall Annex (WMAX), 1933 West Mall

Keisha Maloney
(Community and Regional Planning)
Rehearsals for Transformation: Learning the Craft of Planning
Supervisor(s): Professor James Connolly, Professor Andrew Binet

Friday, August 22, 2025 1:00 PM - 1346, Life Sciences Institute, 2350 Health Sciences Mall

Abhishek Bedi
(Microbiology and Immunology)
WAVE 2 and Tpm3.1/3.2: Actin Dynamics, B Cell Biology, and Targeting B-Cell Lymphomas
Supervisor(s): Professor Michael Gold

Wednesday, September 3, 2025 12:30 PM - Room 200

Ning Shen
(Statistics)
Probabilistic Modeling of High-Throughput Sequencing Data for Enhanced Understanding of DNA Methylation Heterogeneity
Supervisor(s): Professor Keegan Korthauer

Friday, October 10, 2025 9:00 AM - Room 200

Jill Morris
(Curriculum and Pedagogy)
A Curriculum of Revelation: Jean-Luc Marion's Saturated Phenomena in the Classroom
Supervisor(s): Professor Anne Phelan