At UBC Science, outstanding scientists and students strive to unravel the principles that underlie our universe - from the subatomic to the macroscopic, from pure mathematics to biotechnology, from ecosystems to galactic systems. Through the breadth and depth of our academic endeavours and the calibre of the people who make up our community, we take pride in discovering new scientific knowledge and preparing Canada’s and the world’s next generation of scientists.

A diverse range of highly ranked programs

With access to master’s and doctoral degrees through nine departments and 350 research groups, our graduate students work with world-class faculty to explore the basic sciences, and to pursue interdisciplinary and applied research across departments and units. UBC’s research excellence in environmental science, math, physics, plant and animal science, computer science, geology and biology is consistently rated best in Canada by international and national ranking agencies.

Committed to outstanding graduate training

UBC Science houses a wide range of prestigious NSERC Collaborative Research and Training Experience and related industry programs: from atmospheric aerosols to high-throughput biology, from biodiversity research and ecosystems services to plant cell wall biosynthesis, from quantum science and new materials to applied geochemistry. The options for enriched graduate training in industry related fields are almost endless.

World-class research infrastructure

Our affiliated institutes and centres include UBC's Michael Smith Laboratories, Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, Biodiversity Research Centre, Life Sciences Institute, Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, Mineral Deposit Research Unit, and TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics.

Top research talent

UBC Science boasts more than 50 Canada Research Chairs, 12 fellows of the Royal Society of London, and has been home to two Nobel Laureates. Our graduate students have won 15 prestigious Vanier Scholarships.

A diverse, supportive community of scholars

UBC Science is committed to excellence, collaboration and inclusion. Women account for 41 per cent of the Faculty's graduate enrollments, and the percentage of international students has increased to 50 per cent over the past decade.

Mission
To nurture an exceptional scientific learning and research environment for the people of British Columbia, Canada, and the world.
 

Research Centres

Biodiversity, Evolution and Ecology

Computational Sciences and Mathematics

Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

Genomics and Biological Sciences

Human-Computer Interaction

Life Sciences

Chemistry and Materials Science

Physics

Sustainability

Research Facilities

Designed to inspire collaboration and creativity across disciplines, the Earth Sciences Building (ESB) lies at the heart of the science precinct on UBC’s Vancouver Campus. The $75 million facility is home to Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Statistics, the Pacific Institute of the Mathematical Sciences, and the dean’s office of the Faculty of Science. ESB’s teaching facilities will help Canada meet the challenges of a transforming and growing resource sector. Just as importantly, the researchers and students working and learning in the facility will offer a valuable flow of well-trained talent, new ideas, and fresh professional perspectives to industry.

Research Highlights

Receiving more than $120 million in annual research funding, UBC Science faculty members conduct top-tier research in the life, physical, earth and computational sciences. Their discoveries help build our understanding of natural laws—driving insights into sustainability, biodiversity, human health, nanoscience and new materials, probability, artificial intelligence, exoplanets and a wide range of other areas.

UBC Science boasts 50 Canada Research Chairs and 10 fellows of the Royal Society of London, and has been home to two Nobel Laureates. 

Schools / Departments

Department

Graduate Degree Programs

Research Supervisors in Faculty

or browse the list of faculty members in various academic units. You may click each unit to view faculty members appointed in that unit. View the full faculty member directory for more search and filter options.
Name Academic Unit(s) Research Interests
Solymosi, Jozsef Department of Mathematics Additive Combinatorics, Discrete and Computational Geometry, Graph theory, and Combinatorial Number Theory
Song, Liang Department of Botany Plant genomics; Environmental stresses; Seed development; Gene Expression
Sossi, Vesna Department of Physics & Astronomy Medical Imaging, Brain imaging
Srivastava, Diane Department of Zoology Community ecology (except invasive species ecology); community ecology, food webs, tropical conservation, metacommunities, open science, data syntheses,
Stairs, Ingrid Department of Physics & Astronomy pulsars, gravity, general relativity, radio astronomy, radio pulsars, pulsar searches and long-term timing, Radio astronomy
Stamp, Philip C Department of Physics & Astronomy Theoretical physics, strongly-correlated condensed matter systems, quantum magnetism, decoherence, quantum information, gravity
Stephenson, Corey Department of Chemistry, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Photoredox Methodology, Complex Molecule Synthesis, Biomass Degradation
Straus, Suzana Department of Chemistry Chemical sciences; Proteins; Antimicrobial peptides; Protein-protein interactions; Structure-function; Viral membrane proteins
Stull, Roland Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences Meteorology and weather; weather; Meteorology; atmospheric science; numerical weather prediction; clean energy meteorology; storms; transportation weather; forest fire weather; weather disasters; atmospheric boundary layers; aviation meteorology
Sugioka, Kenji Department of Zoology Basic medicine and life sciences; Cell division; Animal morphogenesis; Cytoskeletal dynamics
Sumaila, Ussif Rashid Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs Bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing and the economics of high and deep seas fisheries
Summers, Alexander Department of Computer Science Programming languages and software engineering; programming languages; software engineering
Sun, Jim Department of Microbiology & Immunology Cellular immunology; Pathogenesis; Intracellular signaling, signal transduction, receptor and membrane biology; Bacteriology; Host immunity to tuberculosis; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Cellular microbiology; Host-directed therapy; TB drug discovery; Macrophage biology; Intracellular pathogens
Sutherland, Danica Department of Computer Science
Suttle, Curtis Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, Department of Botany, Department of Microbiology & Immunology Bioinformatics; Fisheries sciences; Immunology; Microbiology; Oceanography; Plant biology; Biological Oceanography; Environmental Virology; Marine Environment; Marine Microbiology; Microbial Diversity; Phage; Viral Discovery; Viruses
Tang, Xin Michael Smith Laboratories, Department of Computer Science Bioinformatics; Artificial intelligence (AI); Cell biology; Neurosciences, biological and chemical aspects; Mathematical biology; Genetics; Medical and biomedical engineering; Cancer; Neurosciences, medical and physiological and health aspects; Explainable and Interpretable Learning, Representation Learning, Knowledge Distillation; Biologically Informed Neural Network, Physically Informed Neural Network; Knowledge Distillation, Biological LLM, Biomedical Image Processing; Computational Cell Biology, Single-cell Biology, Multi-omics, Virtual Cell, Spatial Omics; Brain-Computer Interface, Neuroscience, Brain Mapping; Cancer Genomics, Development, Aging
Tanner, Martin Department of Chemistry Enzymes responsible for the biosynthesis of the sialic acids in mammals
Tarling, Matthew Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences structure, deformation behaviour & evolution of large faults and shear zones over the seismic cycle; Geology; Geophysics; Mineral Deposits
Taylor, Eric Department of Zoology possible threats to native fish; native BC fish biodiversity; fish biology and conservation; evolution, Evolution and conservation of fishes
Tetzlaff, Wolfram Department of Zoology Neural development and regeneration
Thachuk, Mark Department of Chemistry Reaction dynamics, mathematical techniques, Chemical physics
Tocheva, Elitza Department of Microbiology & Immunology Microbiology; Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Functional and Structural Proteomics; Microbial Ultrastructure; Cryo-electron tomography and Structural Biology; bacterial physiology; Microbial Diversity; Secretion systems and Mechanisms of pathogenesis; Novel bacterial phyla
Todesco, Marco Michael Smith Laboratories, Department of Botany Plant biology; Quantitative genetics (including disease and trait mapping genetics); Biological adaptation; Developmental genetics (including sex determination); Genomics; Population, ecological and evolutionary genetics; Paleogenomics; Genetics engineering; Genetic and molecular basis of adaptation; Plant genomics; Chromosomal structural variation; Crop improvement and bioengineering; Wild sunflowers ecology and evolution; Cannabis diversity and domestication
Tokuriki, Nobuhiko Michael Smith Laboratories, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Experimental evolution of proteins and molecular networks.
Tokuyama, Maria Department of Microbiology & Immunology Virology; Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs); Chronic interaction between viruses and the immune system

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Recent Publications

This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Science.

 

Recent Thesis Submissions

Doctoral Citations

A doctoral citation summarizes the nature of the independent research, provides a high-level overview of the study, states the significance of the work and says who will benefit from the findings in clear, non-specialized language, so that members of a lay audience will understand it.
Year Citation Program
2024 Dr. Paajanen explored the historical ecology and species hybridization in the endangered endemic flora of Saint Helena island in the South Atlantic Ocean. These studies help us understand the human induced vegetation changes on oceanic islands and the role of hybridization in the evolution and conservation of the world's diverse botanical heritage. Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD)
2024 Dr. Kraft studied how students experienced a lab in the first-year physics lab sequence. He found that students struggled to correctly interpret statistics and implemented an intervention to address this. These results, along with his other investigations in this lab, provide valuable feedback for designing open-ended physics labs. Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD)
2024 Dr. Zhang's doctoral work focused on the mechanism study of phosphorus polymer materials. It resulted in a a competing cyclization-decyclization and isomerization-addition steps in the polymerization. These findings will benefit the future study of these novel phosphorus containing polymers which could potentially be used in fire retardant materials. Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD)
2024 Dr. Metcalfe-Roach identified a connection between specific dietary patterns and the onset of Parkinson's disease, and showed that this connection may be partially due to the influence of diet on bacterial populations present in the intestinal tract. This work may lead to new interventions to reduce the burden of Parkinson's disease pre- and post-diagnosis. Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)
2024 Dr. Gong looked at how fluid environments affect the dynamics of swimming microorganisms with different shapes. He developed analytical models using low Reynolds number hydrodynamics to study viscotaxis, and propulsions in complex fluids. His work offers insights into microrobotics for biomedical uses and the design of advanced microrheometers. Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD)
2024 Dr. Korchinski developed theories explaining the statistical properties of the cascading rearrangements observed in disordered solids and crumpled sheets. Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD)
2024 Dr. Bucci developed interfaces to create meaningful interactions between computers and people using a variety of sensors and artificial intelligence approaches. Through multiple projects, he detected emotions through brainwave and touch-based data, and designed an interactive meaning-based document organization system for qualitative research of millions of documents. Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD)
2024 Dr. Bradley examined the extraneous work software developers perform to coordinate their tools. He investigated how information already present within tools can act as a task context to ease developers' tool coordination effort. Future tools can use this task context to proactively assist developers complete their tasks more productively. Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD)
2024 T cells play a pivotal role in human immunity. Dr. Zhu shows that the differentially regulated chromatin states in the T cells from newborns and leukemia patients could impair T-cell differentiation, resulting in immune deficiency or cancer. Her research reveals putative targets for therapy to restore the immune function of these impaired T cells. Doctor of Philosophy in Genome Science and Technology (PhD)
2024 Dr. Beskrovnaya investigated the cell envelope transformations occurring across the sporulation cycle in the bacterium Acetonema longum. Her study provides the first characterization of the molecular mechanisms involved in endospore formation in Gram-negative species, contributing insight into the evolutionary timeline of bacteria. Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)

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