Upcoming Exams

Defences held in person have locations listed with the date below. Zoom information for virtual exams is not listed; if you are interested in attending one of these  defences, please contact the candidate's department or graduate.doctoral@ubc.ca. Zoom links are available one week prior to the defence.

Monday, 28 July 2025 - 10:30am - 969, Henry Angus Building, 2053 Main Mall

Dongliang Lu
Department: Sauder School of Business
Essays in Corporate Governance and Financial Institutions

Monday, 28 July 2025 - 12:30pm - D317, Chemistry Bldg, 2036 Main Mall

Qingyuan Bian
Department: Chemistry
Engineering Protein-Based Functional Materials

Monday, 28 July 2025 - 12:30pm - 203, Mathematics Bldg, 1984 Mathematics Rd

Katharine Faulkner
Department: Mathematics
Mathematical Models for a Mechanistic Understanding of Type 2 Diabetes Development

Monday, 28 July 2025 - 1:00pm - Zoom

Yupei Ma
Department: Vancouver School of Economics
Essays in Applied Microeconomics

Monday, 28 July 2025 - 1:30pm - 1330, Life Sciences Institute, 2350 Health Sciences Mall

John Kim
Department: Cell & Developmental Biology
Consequences and Repair of Mitochondrial Protein Import Defects in Mammals

Monday, 28 July 2025 - 1:30pm - Dorothy Lam Boardroom, BC Cancer Research Institute, 675 West 10th Avenue

MONA ORANGI
Department: Oncology
The Role of Innate Lymphoid Cells in Steatohepatitis and Liver Fibrosis

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 - 9:00am - Room 203

Baohui Jia
Department: Civil Engineering
Membrane Ageing in Drinking Water Treatment: Assessing the Impact of Natural Organic Matter Foulants and Hypochlorite Interactions

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 - 9:00am - Zoom

Hong Sik Kim
Department: Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries
Economic Impacts of Ocean Deoxygenation on Marine Fisheries and Ecosystems

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 - 12:30pm - Room 200

Xia Sun
Department: Forestry
Synthesis and Applications of Dialcohol Nanocellulose

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 - 1:00pm - Zoom

Kate Wahl
Department: Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Advancing Knowledge Translation in the Context of Abortion Policy and Practice in Canada

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 - 3:00pm - X836, ICICS, 2366 Main Mall

Shih Han Chou
Department: Computer Science
Vision and Language: Representation Learning, Commonsense Reasoning, and Consistency

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 - 4:00pm - 2071, Civil and Mechanical Engineering, 6250 Applied Science Lane

Xinglong Huang
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Development and Applications of Light Field Microscopy Systems for On-Chip 3D Characterization of Dynamic Samples in Microfluidic Platforms

Wednesday, 30 July 2025 - 9:00am - D213, Chemistry Bldg, 2036 Main Mall

Paul Heine
Department: Chemistry
The Atmospheric Fate of Volatile Organic Selenium Measured by Online Proton-Transfer-Reaction Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

Wednesday, 30 July 2025 - 9:00am - Zoom

Shayan Jannati
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Quantitative Analysis of Cell Mechanics with a Focus on Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs)

Wednesday, 30 July 2025 - 10:00am - Zoom

Eva Crowson
Department: Educational Studies
The British Empire's Ruins in Higher Education

Wednesday, 30 July 2025 - 12:30pm - Room 203

Robert Shilton
Department: Civil Engineering
Sprayable Geopolymer for Underground Wastewater Infrastructure

Wednesday, 30 July 2025 - 1:00pm - 2101, Douglas T. Kenny Building, 2136 West Mall

Matthew Billet
Department: Psychology
Antecedents and Outcomes of Spiritual Connections to Nature

Wednesday, 30 July 2025 - 3:00pm - 3113, BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, 950 West 28th Avenue

Junran Yan
Department: Cell & Developmental Biology
Eukaryotic Elongation Factor 2 EFK-1/eEF2K Promotes Starvation Resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans

Thursday, 31 July 2025 - 9:00am - Room 200

Ka-Ming Tong
Department: Chemistry
Photophysics of Rhenium(I) and Platinum (II) Complexes with Sulfur-Bridged of Flexible Lewis Pair Ligands

Thursday, 31 July 2025 - 12:30pm - 1312, Life Sciences Institute, 2350 Health Sciences Mall

Kevin Jeffers
Department: Medical Genetics
Characterization of the Yeast VPS13 VAB Domain in Regard to its Regulation of PxP Adaptor Recruitment and VPS13 Function

Thursday, 31 July 2025 - 12:30pm - Room 200

Natalie Westwood
Department: Zoology
Exploring the Intricacies of Systems: From Treeholes to Teaching

Thursday, 31 July 2025 - 12:30pm - 1617, Forest Sciences Centre, 2424 Main Mall

Ramon Melser
Department: Forestry
Enhanced Assessment of Boreal Vegetation Productivity Using Integrated Satellite-Derived Datasets and Analysis Approaches

Thursday, 31 July 2025 - 1:00pm - E404, Shaughnessy Bldg, BC Women's Hospital, 4500 Oak st

Yasser Sabr
Department: Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Severe Maternal Morbidity and Maternal Mortality Associated with Pre-existing Medical Conditions in Pregnancy

Thursday, 31 July 2025 - 3:00pm - Zoom

Daniel Jaramillo Calderon
Department: Vancouver School of Economics
Essays on the Economics of Crime and Conflict

Friday, 1 August 2025 - 9:00am - Room 200

Samantha Myers
Department: Rehabilitation Sciences
Understanding Who Engages and Why it Matters: Predictors and Outcomes of Exercise Adherence in Real-World and Remote Cancer Exercise Programs

Tuesday, 5 August 2025 - 10:00am - Zoom

Kanageswari Singara Veloo
Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Minimal Thermal Treatment of Cellulosic Biomass to Produce Torrefied Pellets

Tuesday, 5 August 2025 - 11:00am - 3200, Biological Sciences Building, 6270 University Blvd

Siobhan Schenk
Department: Botany
The Bacterial Community of Sugar Kelp (Saccharina Latissima) in Cultivation and under Salinity Stress

Tuesday, 5 August 2025 - 12:30pm - Room 200

Evan Muise
Department: Forestry
Assessing Forest Ecological Integrity and Protected Area Effectiveness in British Columbia with Satellite Remote Sensing

Tuesday, 5 August 2025 - 12:30pm - Room 203

Evgenia Rabinovich
Department: Music
Fostering Flow in Piano Performance through Effective Practice

Tuesday, 5 August 2025 - 4:00pm - Room 203

Zihuan Wang
Department: Electrical & Computer Engineering
Machine Learning Enabled Integrated Sensing and Communication for Next Generation Wireless Networks

Wednesday, 6 August 2025 - 9:00am - Zoom

Brian Watson
Department: Information
Expanding the Margins in the History of Sexuality & Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums & Special Collections (GLAM)

Wednesday, 6 August 2025 - 12:30pm - Room 200

Naomi Graham
Department: Computer Science
Factoring Over Probability Simplices: From Theory to Applications

Thursday, 7 August 2025 - 9:00am - Room 203

Sneha Singh
Department: Pharmaceutical Sciences
Cross-Talk between Somatostatin and Dopamine Receptors: its Role in Neurogenesis and Amyloid Beta-Induced Neurotoxicity

Thursday, 7 August 2025 - 1:00pm - 12th Floor Seminar Room, BC Cancer Research Centre, 675 W 10th Ave

Faeze Keshavarz Rahaghi
Department: Bioinformatics
Application of Machine Learning and Language Models in Health and Biological Sciences

Thursday, 7 August 2025 - 1:00pm - 2202, Civil and Mechanical Engineering Bldg, 6250 Applied Science Ln

Indu Kant Deo
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Physics-Guided Deep Learning for Dynamical Systems: Applications to Fluid Flow and Ocean Acoustics

Friday, 8 August 2025 - 9:00am - 224, Biodiversity Research Centre, 2212 Main Mall

Graeme Keais
Department: Botany
Evolutionary Consequences of Conflict and Competition During the Haploid Phase

Monday, 11 August 2025 - 10:00am - 5505, Fred Kaiser Building, 2332 Main Mall

Eric Cheng
Department: Electrical & Computer Engineering
Development of a Machine Vision Guided Inkjet Platform for Single Cell Isolation Using Real-Time Machine Learning Feedback

Wednesday, 13 August 2025 - 9:00am - Room 200

William Primrose
Department: Chemistry
Development of Glassy Organic Dots for Biological Imaging

Wednesday, 13 August 2025 - 11:00am - Zoom

Mikayla Pachkowski
Department: Psychology
Coping with Suicidal Ideation: A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Examination

Thursday, 14 August 2025 - 9:00am - Room 203

Bruce Musariri
Department: Materials Engineering
Impact of Organic Compounds on Arsenic Toxicity in Arsenopyrite Biooxidation for Pretreatment of Refractory Gold Ore

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

Tamara Ukwu
Department: 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)

Thursday, 14 August 2025 - 10:00am - 5104, Earth Sciences Building, 2207 Main Mall

Joseph Janssen
Department: Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
Diagnosing Spatiotemporal Catchment Hydrologic Behavior via Causal Inference, Information Theory, and Machine Learning

Thursday, 14 August 2025 - 1:00pm - V2-221, Clinical Support Building, BC Children's Hospital, 932 29th Ave Bikeway

Chau Truong
Department: Cell & Developmental Biology
Delineating the Roles of Integrin α6 in Central Nervous System Involved Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Monday, 18 August 2025 - 9:00am - Room 200

LEI LI
Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Simulation of Hydrogel Mechanics in Biomicrofluidic Applications

Monday, 18 August 2025 - 9:00am - Zoom

Justin Turner
Department: Rehabilitation Sciences
Garden of Resilience: Individual, Clinician, and Indigenous Community Stories of Disruption and Adaptation during the 21st Century

Wednesday, 20 August 2025 - 9:00am - Zoom

Kevin Roberts
Department: Psychology
Improving Psychological Tools for the Investigation of Affective Biases in Perception and Attention

Wednesday, 20 August 2025 - 3:30pm - Zoom

Maram Sakr
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Democratizing Robot Learning: Teaching by Demonstration with Everyday Users in Mind

Wednesday, 20 August 2025 - 4:00pm - Zoom

Jasem Estakhr
Department: Neuroscience
Important Roles of AKAP150-anchored PKA and CaN in Mediating Crosstalk Between LTP and LTD and Consequently LTP/LTD Balance

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

Christian Weilbach
Department: Computer Science
Structured Amortized Variational Inference

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

NUHA ALOMAR
Department: Dentistry
Supervision and Autonomy in Periodontics Surgical Education: A Grounded Theory Study at an Academic Institution

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

Keisha Maloney
Department: Community and Regional Planning
Rehearsals for Transformation: Learning the Craft of Planning

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

Abhishek Bedi
Department: Microbiology and Immunology
WAVE 2 and Tpm3.1/3.2: Actin Dynamics, B Cell Biology, and Targeting B-Cell Lymphomas

Monday, 25 August 2025 - 9:00am - Room 200

Jennifer Nagtegaal
Department: French, Hispanic and Italian Studies
Expanded Comics: Multimediality, Performance, and Extra Multimodality under Post-Postmodernism

Tuesday, 26 August 2025 - 9:00am - 2202, Civil and Mechanical Engineering Bldg, 6250 Applied Science Ln

Sifat Kalam
Department: Civil Engineering
Engineering Membrane Wettability for Industrial Wastewater Reclamation

Wednesday, 27 August 2025 - 9:00am - Room 200

Kieran Forde
Department: Curriculum and Pedagogy
Pilgrimage, Reorientation, and Reconciliation: Teacher Inquiry and the Curriculum of the Self

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

Ning Shen
Department: Statistics
Probabilistic Modeling of High-Throughput Sequencing Data for Enhanced Understanding of DNA Methylation Heterogeneity

Thursday, 4 September 2025 - 10:00am - 1330, Life Sciences Institute, 2350 Health Sciences Mall

Ramin Ebrahim Nakhli
Department: Biomedical Engineering
Characterization of Cellular Interactions in Histopathology Images for Clinical and Biomedical Research using Deep Learning Models

Thursday, 4 September 2025 - 3:00pm - Zoom

Benjamin Hives
Department: Kinesiology
Exploring the Reciprocal Relationship between Stress and Physical Activity

Friday, 5 September 2025 - 1:00pm - Zoom

Xinyuan Zhang
Department: Sauder School of Business
Learning and Decision-Making in Complex Information Environments

Thursday, 11 September 2025 - 12:00pm - Zoom

Jennie Pearson
Department: Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program
Building "Communities of Care" under Sex Work Criminalization and Beyond: Exploring How Mutual Aid Supports the Health, Safety and Wellbeing of Sex Workers in Vancouver, Canada

Friday, 12 September 2025 - 12:30pm - Room 200

Amirhossein Tavakoli
Department: Vancouver School of Economics
Essays on Firms and Workers

Monday, 15 September 2025 - 9:00am - Zoom

Robert Mahikwa
Department: Educational Studies
Mentoring Indigenous Graduate Students into Indigenous Scholars

Friday, 19 September 2025 - 9:00am - Zoom

Elise Chu
Department: Curriculum and Pedagogy
Understanding Curriculum as Play: Transdisciplinarity, Spirituality, and Consciousness

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

Jill Morris
Department: Curriculum and Pedagogy
A Curriculum of Revelation: Jean-Luc Marion's Saturated Phenomena in the Classroom