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

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 The terrestrial plants possess a cuticle which comprises a mixture of ubiquitous waxes that have important physiological roles. Dr. Gozdzik investigated the cuticles of several plant species to infer biosynthetic mechanisms for non-ubiquitous specialty wax compounds which furthers the understanding of the roles and origins of those wax compounds. Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD)
2024 Dr. Banados Schwerter studied the formal requirements for detecting type inconsistencies in programming languages that combine static and dynamic type checking, and a novel reporting technique for these errors. His research will assist the design of new programming languages and help their future programmers to find and fix programming mistakes. Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD)
2024 Dr. Feng proposed an inexpensive method to reduce the amount of human labeling in the task of extracting relations from documents. He proposed a novel self-training method to improve the performance of text generation and relation extraction when few labeled data is used to train a machine learning model. Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD)
2024 Dr. He developed a self-supervised machine learning tool that minimizes the need for extensive human annotation, thereby alleviating the reliance on costly human labor during the machine learning development process. Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD)
2023 Dr. Huggins studied how microorganisms use nitrogen in low-oxygen marine waters. She found that, in some cases, nitrogen can be recycled faster than it is lost from the environment. Her work adds to our knowledge about the impacts of oxygen loss and climate change in the oceans. Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)
2023 Dr. Irwin studied how to use computers to solve noisy optimization problems, which are optimization problems where one cannot measure the quantity one wants to optimize exactly. He developed three new computer algorithms for solving noisy optimization problems, including an industrial problem encountered by makers of computer chips. Doctor of Philosophy in Geophysics (PhD)
2023 Dr. Yin developed new methods to improve mass spectrometry based proteomic research. His work enabled more comprehensive and accurate measurement of proteins, thus contributing to a deeper understanding of the state of biological systems studied. The methods he developed has potential future applications in advancing disease diagnosis and therapeutics discovery. Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD)
2023 Dr. Jones developed and implemented phylogenetic methods to estimate integration dates of HIV proviruses. His findings have provided a better understanding of within-host HIV dynamics and is beneficial for HIV cure research. Doctor of Philosophy in Bioinformatics (PhD)
2023 Quite surprisingly, some quantum systems can encode gravitational physics in a higher dimensional space. Dr. Waddell used this fact to study a key quantum system arising in string theory, to show that information about a black hole's contents is not destroyed when it evaporates, and to propose a quantum description of universes similar to our own. Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD)
2023 Dr. Dostert studied communities of the highly antibiotic resistant bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. She identified genes mediating community growth in diverse environments. Her research demonstrated the strong influence of the growth environment on the entire gene network and provided interesting gene candidates for the design of novel drugs. Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)

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