
Robin Newhouse
Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD)
Searching for evidence of Heavy Neutral Leptons in the LHC with the ATLAS Experiment
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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 |
---|---|---|
Dean, Gillian | Plants; Genes; Cell wall; plant development; Genetics; mutants; Cell Biology | |
Dierker, Steve | Department of Physics & Astronomy | Physical sciences; Collective dynamics of condensed matter systems; Dependence on reduced dimensionality, strong interactions, disorder, and mesoscale structure |
Ding, Jiarui | Department of Computer Science | Bioinformatics; Basic medicine and life sciences; Computational Biology; Machine Learning; Probabilistic Deep Learning; single-cell genomics; visualization; Cancer biology; Computational Immunology; Food Allergy; neuroscience |
Dipple, Gregory | Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences | carbon sequestration, geologic fluid flow, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions |
Doebeli, Michael Walter | Department of Mathematics, Department of Zoology | Mathematical ecology and evolution, evolution of diversity, adaptive speciation, evolution of cooperation, game theory, experimental evolution in microorganisms |
Dowlatabadi, Hadi | Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability | Natural environment sciences; Energy Production; Economic Planning of Energy; Climate Changes and Impacts; Public Policies; New Technology and Social Impacts; Health Policies; Transportation Systems; The systematic study of systems at the interface of humans, nature, technology and policy |
Eberhardt, Erik | Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences | landslides, rockslides, tunnelling, mining, rock mechanics, geotechnical engineering, Rock Mechanics & Rock Engineering |
Edelstein-Keshet, Leah | Department of Mathematics | Bioinformatics; Mathematics and statistics; Medical and biomedical engineering; Cell signaling; Cell Signaling and Cancer; cell polarity, cell migration, developmental and cellular biology; Differential Equation; Mathematics; Modelization and Simulation; Rho GTPases; swarming and aggregation |
Eltis, Lindsay | Department of Microbiology & Immunology | Biochemistry; Genomics; Immunology; Microbiology; Bacterial catabolism of steroids and lignin; biocatalyst development; Enzymes and Proteins; Metabolism (Living Organisms); Mycobacterium tuberculosis |
Evans, William | Department of Computer Science | Computer and information sciences; Algorithms; theoretical computer science; Computer Sciences and Mathematical Tools; computational geometry; graph drawing; program compression |
Fast, Naomi | Department of Botany | Genomics, single-celled organisms |
Feeley, Michael | Department of Computer Science | Distributed systems, operating systems, workstation and pc clusters |
Fernandez, Rachel | Department of Microbiology & Immunology | Bordetella pertusis, whooping cough, lipopolysaccharide |
Fink, Jonathan | , | |
Finlay, B Brett | Michael Smith Laboratories, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology | Infectious agents, bacteria, microbial infections and how humans react to it |
Folk, Joshua | Department of Physics & Astronomy | Physical sciences; Fractional quantum Hall effect; Majorana fermions; Quantum devices; Strongly correlated electronics; Topological phenomena; Vanderwaals heterostructures |
Francois, Roger | Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences | Marine Geochemistry, Climate Change |
Franz, Marcel | Department of Physics & Astronomy | Condensed matter theory |
Fraser, Ailana | Department of Mathematics | Differential Geometry, Geometric Analysis |
Friedlander, Michael | Department of Computer Science, Department of Mathematics | numerical optimization, numerical linear algebra, scientific computing, Scientific computing |
Friedman, Joel | Department of Computer Science | Computer and information sciences; Algebraic Graph Theory; Combinatorics; Computer Science Theory |
Froese, Richard Gerd | Department of Mathematics | Mathematics and statistics; Mathematics; Mathematical physics; quantum mechanics; scattering theory; spectral theory |
Garcia, Ronald | Department of Computer Science | programming language semantics, design, and implementation, including language support for library-centric and modular software development, generic and generative programming, and domain specific languages and libraries. |
Garcia Lorenzo, Iria | , | |
Gates, Derek | Department of Chemistry | Inorganic chemistry, materials science, polymer chemistry, catalysis |
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 |
---|---|---|
2021 | Dr. Coleman investigated the physiological mechanisms that allow some kelp species to develop progressively narrower and longer photosynthetic blades as water flow increases. His research has improved our understanding of an important biomechanical adaptation to variable flow conditions in a group of ecologically important marine organisms. | Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Yuan studied how organic molecules interacted with light. She synthesized a variety of sulfur-bridged chromophore dimers and examined the effect of oxidation on the photophysical and photochemical properties. She demonstrated how these materials could be used for potential applications in anti-counterfeiting. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Cen studied the effects of insulin levels on insulin receptor expression. He showed that high insulin reduces insulin receptors in muscle, thereby causing insulin resistance. He also identified proteins that control insulin receptor expression and movement within cells. His findings improve our understanding of insulin resistance and diabetes. | Doctor of Philosophy in Genome Science and Technology (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Wong searched for exotic particles beyond the Standard Model of particle physics with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The searches helped constrain new physics scenarios, including leptoquarks and hidden strong dynamics. He also contributed to the upgrade of a tracking system of the detector, allowing efficient recording of collision data. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Lai investigated the Green tensor of incompressible flows in the half space and examined existence theorems of fluid-related models such as plasma, polymetric liquid, and swimming bacteria. His research provides insights on boundary behavior of fluid flows and gives a deeper understanding of complex fluids. | Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Yang explored the extreme limits of chemical bonding in both long and short directions. The molecular systems designed with the new theories can be used as molecular switches, narrow band-gap conducting polymers, and superhigh energy density materials. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Gil discovered novel anatomical structures in baleen whales that protect the nasal cavities from pressure damage and the respiratory tract from water and food incursion. She proposed a mechanism for how these whales can swallow huge volumes of food through a surprisingly small esophagus, contributing to the evolution of their enormous size. | Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Berk analyzed sensitivity of LASSO programs, which are well-known algorithms at the interface of convex optimization and probability. This sensitivity analysis builds on important tools from high-dimensional probability theory, and informs the practitioner's selection of the right computational tool. | Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Melo developed a super-resolution microscope, combining interferometric scattering and Raman microscopies, which he applied to nanoscopic and biological systems. He also developed a non-invasive methodology to diagnose Brugada Syndrome, a precursor of sudden cardiac death, from the analysis of electrocardiograms using a deep neural network. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
2021 | Dr. Qu explored methods of modifying graphene on a silicon carbide substrate using adsorbed and intercalated atoms. Using a variety of surface characterization techniques, she studied the electronic properties of the resulting materials. This research helps us understand how graphene could eventually be used in everyday electronics. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |