Amber Heckelman
Doctor of Philosophy in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems (PhD)
Agrarian Responses to Climate Change: A 'Food sovereignty' Analysis of Small-Holder Farm Systems in the Philippines
All living things depend on the sustainability of the earth’s resources, and understanding how to protect and better manage those limited resources is crucial to our survival. Critical environmental issues like water pollution, food shortages and rising temperatures could have a catastrophic effect on our ability to meet basic human needs in the near future. Experts in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems are working on solutions to many of these challenges.
Our researchers are studying everything from climate change and storm water management to the relationship between food, nutrition, diet and health. The research discoveries being made here have the potential to reach across borders for world-wide applications.
We are also sharing what we’ve learned with the next generation of scientists - our students. They come to us with a strong sense of global responsibility, passionate about creating positive and lasting change on issues of importance. We believe that by providing them with the opportunity to learn outside the traditional classroom - taking part in a community-based experiential learning project or studying overseas - we can enhance their education and help them develop to their full potential.
Research Centres
Research Facilities
The Wine Research Centre has modern and fully equipped molecular biology laboratories and a mass spectrometry laboratory. In addition, the Microarray Facility in the Centre serves as a core DNA Array Facility for scientists on the UBC campus. Researchers in the Wine Research Centre also have full access to the outstanding research facilities in the Michael Smith Laboratories (MSL) which is conveniently located adjacent to the Centre.
UBC Farm is a living laboratory that contains agricultural, forest, and transitional landscape areas for interdisciplinary field research. The Centre for Sustainable Food Systems (CSFS), located at UBC Farm, is a unique research centre that aims to understand and fundamentally transform local and global food systems towards a more sustainable, food secure future.
The Dairy Education and Research Centre is an internationally recognized dairy cattle research centre supporting the development and adaptation of new technologies for the dairy industry in BC and beyond. The Centre has a large research herd that can provide sufficient numbers of experimental animals at a given physiological stage to meet most research requirements. These features support a vibrant critical mass of students, postdoctoral fellows, staff, visiting scientists, and faculty. A 10,800 square-foot student residence building opened in September 2015, which allows students and researchers to live on-site at the Agassiz research station, and more closely monitor their research projects in dairy cattle welfare, animal reproduction, and resource recovery.
Research Highlights
In the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, our researchers are focused on finding viable solutions to pressing global crises and are known worldwide for their innovation and leadership in areas such as dairy, aquaculture and wine research.
Our researchers have attracted millions of dollars in research funding from sources including Genome Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Michael Smith Scholar, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Our experts are conducting groundbreaking research in many areas including:
- animal biology, health, and welfare;
- food technology, genomics, and safety;
- plant and soil health;
- watershed management;
- food security and sovereignty;
- community health and nutrition;
- agricultural land use and impact.
Graduate Degree Programs
Research Supervisors in Faculty
| Name | Research Interests |
|---|---|
| Allen, Kevin | why foodborne pathogens continue to be a significant issue in our food chain; antimicrobial resistance of zoonotic foodborne pathogens; factors which may contribute to pathogen contamination of produce (e.g. Norovirus, E. coli O157:H7 and other STEC, Salmonella, etc.). |
| Barichello, Richard | Capitlization of Government program benefits , quota systems and markets, agricultural policy, trade,industrial and agricultural pocliy reform in South East Asian Countries, economics of raw material export |
| Black, Jennifer | Community Health / Public Health, nutrition, public health, food environments, social determinants of health, food banks, school food environments |
| Black, Thomas Andrew | Biometeorology, Soil physics, Microclimate modification |
| Carrillo, Juli | |
| Castellarin, Simone | viticulture and grapevine physiology; physiological and molecular aspects that underlay fruit ripening and the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, and how they are modulated by the environment and viticultural practices; molecular viticulture |
| Cerri, Ronaldo | Animal Reproduction, Animal Production, Agricultural Machinery and Technology, Endocrine Regulation, Biotechnology and Activity monitors, Dairy cattle reproduction, Endometrium-conceptus cross communication, Production medicine in dairy cattle, Estrous cycle physiology in cattle, Inflammation and stress |
| Dee, Derek | Proteins, Enzymes and Proteins, Agri-food Transformation Products, Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms, Nanomaterials, Nutriceuticals and Functional Foods, protein folding, protein aggregation, biophysics, food chemistry, protein engineering, funtional amyloid, protein nanofibrils, psychrophilic enzymes, aspartic proteases, prions |
| Farrell, Anthony | Angiogenesis |
| Fraser, David | Welfare of animals on farms, animal ethics, animal behaviour, Animal welfare, innovations in animal housing and management, practical and cultural dimensions of applying ethics to animal issues |
| Gulati, Sumeet | Tax Incentives for Hybrid or Electric Vehicles, Carbon Tax, Cap and Trade, India, Effectiveness of environmental policy, political economy of environmental and trade policy, international trade and its effect on the environment |
| Jessri, Mahsa | Nutrition, Community Health / Public Health, Epidemiology, Health Policies, Lifestyle Determinants and Health, Health Promotion, Health Prevention, Statistics and Probabilities, Preventive medicine, Nutritional Epidemiology, Public and Population Health, Dietetics, Clinical Epidemiology, Preventive Medicine, Chronic Disease Prevention, Dietary Pattern Modeling, Predictive Analytics, Dietary Assessment |
| Jovel, Eduardo | Ethnobotany, mycology, natural product chemistry and Aboriginal health |
| Karakochuk, Crystal Dawn | Maternal and child nutrition, Micronutrients (namely iron, folic acid, and zinc), Biochemical markers of iron status, Determinants and causes of anemia, Inherited blood disorders (sickle cell, thalassemia, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency), International nutrition, Clinical dietetics, Risk-benefit of micronutrient supplementation |
| Kitts, David | Food chemistry and toxicology, cellular and molecular mechanism, oncology |
| Krzic, Maja | Agriculture, Soil science, Soil science education, Integration of multimedia and soil science |
| Lamers, Yvonne | Nutrition, Nutrients, Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms, Breast Feeding and Infant Nutrition, Nutritional Biochemistry, Micronutrients, Vitamins, Nutritional Biomarker, Pregnancy, Periconceptional folic acid supplementation, Prenatal Supplements, Newborn Screening, Toddler Nutrition, Clinical Chemistry, Maternal and Child Health, Newborn Screening |
| Lu, Xiaonan | Sensors and Devices, Microbiology, Combinatorial Chemistry, Agriculture, Food safety, Food microbiology, Analytical chemistry, Molecular microbiology, Nanotechnology, Advanced material, Microfluidic "lab-on-a-chip", Sensor, Gut microbiome, Food microbiome |
| McAusland, Carol | Interactions between globalization and public good provision, impacts of trade liberalization on environmental politics, potential use of trade policy to stem damages from exotic species introductions and biological invasions Environmental impacts of international trade, implications of skilled labor migration for the global provision of public goods |
| Measday, Vivien | Chromosome segregation in the budding yeast using molecular biology and genomic tools |
| Noack, Frederik | Interaction of economic development and the environment |
| Pratap Singh, Anubhav | Agri-food Transformation Products, Nutriceuticals and Functional Foods, food processing, novel non-thermal processing, functional foods, pulsed light, high pressure, cold plasma, pasteurization, sterilization, heat transfer, mass transfer, food engineering |
| Riseman, Andrew | plant breeding; plant genetics; horticulture; roots; stress physiology, Plant breeding, intercrop interactions, nutrient use efficiency, root physiology, biotic/abtioic stressor |
| Samuels, Susan Elizabeth | Human and animal nutrition |
| Scaman, Christine | Glycosidases, Enzyme mechanism, Food carbohydrate chemistry |
Pages
Graduate Student Profiles
Alumni on Success
Recent Thesis Submissions
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Dairy cattle transition period : disease prevalence and risk factors in grazing and freestall systems (Applied Animal Biology - PHD)
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Individual variability in the feeding behaviour of dairy calves and goats (Applied Animal Biology - PHD)
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Vitamin B6 status of young and older adult women in Metro Vancouver (Human Nutrition - MSC)
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Management practices and cow-level factors related to claw horn disruption lesions in dairy cows (Applied Animal Biology - PHD)
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Socioecological analysis of smallholder farming systems in the Philippines : identifying multi-scalar pathways and barriers to resilience (Integrated Studies In Land and Food Systems - PHD)
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Examining sustainability in food-based dietary guidelines : an international comparison and systems thinking framework for sustainable dietary guideline development (Integrated Studies In Land and Food Systems - MSC)
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Colonization and bacteriophage biocontrol of Salmonella on fresh produce (Food Science - MSC)
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Characterization of cranberry field decline syndrome in British Columbia (Soil Science - MSC)
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Using behaviour to identify sickness and to evaluate treatment in ill transition dairy cows (Applied Animal Biology - PHD)
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Structure-function studies of processing alpha-glucosidase-i (Food Science - PHD)
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Facial expression, vocalizations and eye temperature as potential indicators of pain in harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) (Applied Animal Biology - PHD)
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Dietary choline intake and biomarkers of choline status across the life cycle (Human Nutrition - PHD)
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Terroir and reputation : the economics of British Columbia wine industry in three essays. (Integrated Studies In Land and Food Systems - PHD)
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Promoting farmer and veterinarian cooperation to improve dairy calf welfare (Applied Animal Biology - PHD)
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Planning for whom? The practice of cultural inclusion in alternative food initiatives in Metro Vancouver (Integrated Studies In Land and Food Systems - MSC)
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Carbon sequestration : trade-offs of planting trees on agricultural land (Agricultural Economics - MSC)
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Determining factors of Canadian milk quota prices (Agricultural Economics - MSC)
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Optimal risk management strategies for a cattle backgrounding operation in the Peace River area (Agricultural Economics - MSC)