Patrick Pata
Doctor of Philosophy in Oceanography (PhD)
Structures and drivers of zooplankton communities of the British Columbia coastal ocean
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.
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
Designed to inspire collaboration and creativity across disciplines, the new 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 updated 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 new facility will offer a valuable flow of well-trained talent, new ideas, and fresh professional perspectives to industry.
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.
Name | Academic Unit(s) | Research Interests |
---|---|---|
Pramanik, Malabika | Department of Mathematics | Harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, several complex variables |
Radic, Valentina | Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences | Atmospheric sciences; Geophysics; Climate Changes and Impacts; Climate Science; Glaciology; Meteorology |
Ramdorai, Sujatha | Department of Mathematics | Algebraic theory of quadratic forms, non-cummutative Iwasawa theory, motives |
Ramer, Matthew | Department of Zoology | Pain, Plasticity, Regeneration, Sensory neurons, Sympathetic neurons |
Rechnitzer, Andrew | Department of Mathematics | Enumerative combinatorics, Simulation of combinatorial objects, Lattice statistical mechanics |
Reichstein, Zinovy | Department of Mathematics | Group theory and generalisations; Algebra; Algebraic groups; algebraic geometry |
Reid, Jolene | Department of Chemistry | |
Reid, Andrea | Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries | Fisheries sciences; Culturally significant fish and fisheries |
Reinsberg, Stefan | Department of Physics & Astronomy | Medical physics, MRIs |
Richards, Jeffrey | Department of Zoology | Adaptive significance of the mechanisms coordinating cellular responses to stress |
Rieseberg, Loren | Department of Botany | Bioinformatics; Genomics; Plant biology; adaptation; crops; invasive plants; plant evolutionary biology; speciation; weeds |
Robeva, Elina | Department of Mathematics | Statistical theory and modeling; Machine learning; Algebra; Algebraic statistics; Graphical Models; Tensor decomposition; Causality; Applied algebraic geometry; Shape-constrained density estimation; Tensor networks |
Rosado Rey, Abel | Department of Botany | Plasma membrane repair mechanisms in plants |
Rosen, David | Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries | Animal physiology; Physiology, behaviour, and ecology of marine mammals;; Bioenergetics; Nutrition; Conservation physiology |
Rottler, Joerg | Department of Physics & Astronomy | Physical sciences; Condensed Matter and Materials Physics; Nanomaterials; Polymers; Soft Matter; Solids |
Rozali, Moshe | Department of Physics & Astronomy | String theory, high energy physics, quantum field theory, cosmology and classical gravitational physics |
Russell, Kelly | Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences | Physical sciences; volcanology; petrology; magma rheology; geochemical thermodynamics |
Ryan, Katherine | Department of Chemistry | drug molecules in use today are organic compounds isolated from organisms such as bacteria, plants, and fungi; understand how natural products are made. |
Sagan, Selena | Department of Microbiology & Immunology | role of RNA at the host-virus interface |
Salibian-Barrera, Matias | Department of Statistics | S-regression estimationg, robust statistics, functional principal component analysis, bootstrap estimators, rgam, clustering algorithm |
Sammis, Glenn | Department of Chemistry | Methods development, natural product synthesis, organic free radicals, radical fluorination |
Samuels, Anne Lacey | Department of Botany | Plant biology; plant cell biology; plant cell walls |
Satterfield, Theresa | Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability | Sustainable development, environmental health, First Nation & land management, social and cultural consequences of contamination |
Saylor, Joel Edward | Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences | Paleoaltimetry; Paleoclimatology; Tectonic Basin analysis; Quantitative sediment provenance analysis; Rivers; Tectonics; Sedimentary Basins; Structural Geology; Field Geology; Sedimentology; Stratigraphy; Sequence Stratigraphy; Sediments; Geology |
Schafer, Laurel | Department of Chemistry | catalysis, chemical synthesis, heterocycles, titanium, zirconium, yttrium, tantalum, hydroamination, hydroaminoalkyltion, biodegraable polymers, sustainable synthesis, Green Chemistry, Organometallic and organic chemistry |
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Science.
Year | Citation | Program |
---|---|---|
2023 | Dr. Mehrabifard's research has addressed the problem of human-induced earthquakes resulting from the shift towards cleaner, lower carbon energy resources. By developing a deep understanding of the physics underlying these earthquakes, he has created effective predictive models and identified appropriate mitigation strategies to minimize their occurrence. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geological Engineering (PhD) |
2023 | Dr. Nelson's work focussed on the role of the carbonic anhydrase enzyme within the unique respiratory system responsible for the success of the teleost fishes. Her work advances our understanding of the function, development, and evolution of a respiratory system present in half of all vertebrate species. | Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology (PhD) |
2023 | Dr. Pan investigated new conditional inference and prediction methods after fitting a joint distribution based on vine copulas, including prediction of an arbitrary variable given others, prediction of a right-censored response, and prediction of an ordinal or continuous response when some explanatory variables are nominal categorical. | Doctor of Philosophy in Statistics (PhD) |
2023 | Dr. Jana rigorously investigated algebraic invariants of two spaces: Classifying space for commutativity and Unordered flag manifolds. Their research explored algebraic topology, employing algebraic methods to analyze shapes. The core of the research lies in the pursuit of simplification through decomposition, marking its fundamental significance. | Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD) |
2023 | Where do the chemical elements come from? Using the nuclear physics technique of mass spectrometry, Dr. Jacobs investigated potential astrophysical sites where some of these elements are produced. The findings point to binary neutron star mergers as a prime candidate for explaining a range of elemental abundances observed in stars. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
2023 | Dr. Park's research focused on microbiome associated with seaweeds. He found that the ecological distribution of these host-associated microbes is linked to their positive impact on kelp growth and their ability to colonize kelp, as demonstrated through experimental tests. His work advances the application of ecological theory in probiotic discovery. | Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD) |
2023 | Dr. Pinsonneault-Marotte participated in the realisation of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment telescope and analysis, which resulted in a preliminary detection of hydrogen located nearly 11 billion light-years away. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
2023 | Dr. Fomichev developed computational methods for predicting the properties of materials with strong electron-lattice interactions. Applying these methods to organic solar cell materials, he showed that lattice vibrations can break apart excitons to generate electricity, potentially explaining how this novel technology operates on an atomic scale. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
2023 | Dr. Verma developed synthetic methods to access various pharmaceutically relevant building blocks. These developed one-pot methodologies can expedite the synthesis of a library of compounds thereby accelerating the early drug discovery programs and resulting in the rapid identification of new therapeutics for various diseases. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
2023 | Dr. Ghahramani developed new empirical and numerical methods for predicting the characteristics of tailings flows resulting from breaches of tailings dams. The findings of this study are useful for improving the accuracy of risk assessments and emergency response plans for tailings dam breaches. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geological Engineering (PhD) |