Canadian Immigration Updates

Review details about the recently announced changes to study and work permits that apply to master’s and doctoral degree students. Read more

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
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
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
Eberhardt, Erik Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences Geotechnical engineering; Mining engineering; Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering; Deep Underground Excavations; Rock Slope Engineering; Block Cave Mining
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
Finlay, B Brett Michael Smith Laboratories, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Infectious agents, bacteria, microbial infections and how humans react to it
Fischer, Monika Department of Botany, Department of Forest & Conservation Sciences Mycology; mycology; fire-adapted fungi; fungal community ecology; fungal genetics & development; fungal metabolism
Folk, Joshua Department of Physics & Astronomy Physical sciences; 2D materials and Vanderwaals heterostructures; Quantum electronics; Thermodynamics of quantum systems; Strongly correlated phenomena; Topological phenomena; Quantum transport
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
Gantois, Joséphine Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability Environment and natural resources economics; Ecological applications; Sociology; Human Dimensions of Biodiversity Conservation; environmental economics; Applied Ecology; Rural Sociology; Causal inference; Applied Deep Learning
Gao, Lucy Department of Statistics Statistics; Selective Inference; Inference x Unsupervised Learning; Statistics x Optimization
Garcia, Ronald Department of Computer Science Programming languages; programming languages
Gates, Derek Department of Chemistry Inorganic chemistry, materials science, polymer chemistry, catalysis
Gay, Colin Department of Physics & Astronomy Experimental subatomic physics, Beyond Standard Model physics, Extra dimensions
Gaynor, Kaitlyn Department of Zoology, Department of Botany behavioral responses of animals to human presence; effects of anthropogenic disturbance on predator-prey and other species interactions; socio-ecological dynamics of conservation and coexistence
Genovese, Giuseppe Department of Mathematics
Germain, Rachel Department of Zoology Ecology; evolution
Ghioca, Dragos Department of Mathematics Drinfeld modules, isotrivial semiabelian varieties, Lehmer inequality
Giang, Amanda Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability, Department of Mechanical Engineering Atmospheric sciences; Mechanical engineering; Natural environment sciences; Atmospheric Pollutants; Chemical Pollutants; Climate Changes and Impacts; Public Policies; Social and Cultural Factors of Environmental Protection

Pages

Graduate Student Stories

Manvi Bhalla

Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)

Co-Imagining Just Futures: Advancing Intersectional Environmental Justice in Canadian Environmental Health Policy-Making

Pardis Semnani

Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD)

Causal Inference and Density Estimation

Michael Sekatchev

Master of Science in Physics (MSc)

Axion quark nuggets versus excess galactic emissions

Jackson Moore

Doctor of Philosophy in Genome Science and Technology (PhD)

Domestication and ecology of the model eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Charlotte Milne

Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)

Finding best practices in Canadian flood mapping to decrease risk for all

Zana Mody

Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)

Counting blue carbon for coastal communities: understanding socio-ecological contexts of nature based climate solutions and mangrove restoration

Betty Shea

Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD)

Optimization methods

Rama El-khawaldeh

Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD)

Computer vision for real-time monitoring and control of chemical processes
All Student Stories

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.

 

Secondary Organic Aerosol from Biomass Burning Phenolic Compounds and Nitrate Radicals can be Highly Viscous over a Wide Relative Humidity Range
Publication: Environmental Science and Technology
UBC Author(s): Allan Bertram (Chemistry / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 0013936X
Volume: 58
Page Range: 21702-21715
Publication Date: 10 December 2024

View Publication
The Photocleavable Protein PhoCl-Based Dynamic Hydrogels
Publication: ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering
UBC Author(s): Hongbin Li (Chemistry / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 10
Page Range: 7404-7412
Publication Date: 9 December 2024

View Publication
Erratum: First Search for Dyons with the Full MoEDAL Trapping Detector in 13 TeV pp Collisions [Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 071801 (2021)
Publication: Physical review letters
UBC Author(s): Gordon Walter Semenoff (Physics & Astronomy / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 133
Page Range: 239902
Publication Date: 6 December 2024

View Publication
Partial consumption of medical face masks by a common beetle species
Publication: Biology Letters
UBC Author(s): Michelle Tseng (Botany / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 17449561
Volume: 20
Publication Date: 4 December 2024

View Publication
Scaling of the extended phenotype: Convergent energetics from diverse spider web geometries
Publication: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
UBC Author(s): Leticia Aviles (Zoology / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 09628452
Volume: 291
Publication Date: 4 December 2024

View Publication
Buprenorphine/Naloxone vs Methadone for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder
Publication: JAMA
UBC Author(s): Paul Gustafson (Statistics / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 00987484
Volume: 332
Publication Date: 3 December 2024

View Publication
Hydroaminoalkylation for Amine Functionalization of Vinyl-Terminated Polyethylene Enables Direct Access to Responsive Functional Materials
Publication: Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
UBC Author(s): Laurel Schafer (Chemistry / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 14337851
Volume: 63
Publication Date: 2 December 2024

View Publication
F<inf>ST</inf> and genetic diversity in an island model with background selection
Publication: PLoS Genetics
UBC Author(s): Michael Whitlock (Zoology / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 15537390
Volume: 20
Publication Date: 2 December 2024

View Publication
Consideration of sex as a biological variable in diabetes research across twenty years
Publication: Biology of Sex Differences
UBC Author(s): Katie Marshall (Zoology / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 15
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Plant trait and vegetation data along a 1314 m elevation gradient with fire history in Puna grasslands, Perú
Publication: Scientific Data
UBC Author(s): Sean Michaletz (Botany / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 11
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Effects of human disturbances on wildlife behaviour and consequences for predator-prey overlap in Southeast Asia
Publication: Nature Communications
UBC Author(s): Kaitlyn Gaynor (Zoology / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 15
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Non-volatile electrical polarization switching via domain wall release in 3R-MoS<inf>2</inf> bilayer
Publication: Nature Communications
UBC Author(s): Ziliang Ye (Physics & Astronomy / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 15
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
A Latitudinal Cline in the Taxonomic Structure of Eelgrass Epifaunal Communities is Associated With Plant Genetic Diversity
Publication: Global Ecology and Biogeography
UBC Author(s): Mary O'Connor (Zoology / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 1466822X
Volume: 33
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Correction to: Archaean continental crust formed from mafic cumulates (Nature Communications, (2024), 15, 1, (692), 10.1038/s41467-024-44849-4)
Publication: Nature Communications
UBC Author(s): Matthijs Smit (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 15
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Viewing the PLATO LOPS2 field through the lenses of TESS
Publication: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
UBC Author(s): Michelle Kunimoto (Physics & Astronomy / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 00358711
Volume: 535
Page Range: 1778-1795
Publication Date: 1 December 2024

View Publication
ASPSCR1-TFE3 reprograms transcription by organizing enhancer loops around hexameric VCP/p97
Publication: Nature Communications
UBC Author(s): Martin Hirst (Microbiology & Immunology / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 15
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
First search for K<sup>+</sup> → π<sup>0</sup>πμe decays
Publication: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
UBC Author(s): Douglas Bryman (Physics & Astronomy / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 03702693
Volume: 859
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Indirect H<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf> synthesis without H<inf>2</inf>
Publication: Nature Communications
UBC Author(s): Curtis Berlinguette (Chemistry / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 15
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Long-insert sequence capture detects high copy numbers in a defence-related beta-glucosidase gene βglu-1 with large variations in white spruce but not Norway spruce
Publication: BMC Genomics
UBC Author(s): Carl Bohlmann (Michael Smith Labs / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 25
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Archaean continental crust formed from mafic cumulates
Publication: Nature Communications
UBC Author(s): Matthijs Smit (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 15
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in unvaccinated children and young adults
Publication: BMC Infectious Diseases
UBC Author(s): Daniel Coombs (Mathematics / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 24
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Metabolic switching, growth kinetics and cell yields in the scalable manufacture of stem cell-derived insulin-producing cells
Publication: Stem Cell Research and Therapy
UBC Author(s): James Piret (Michael Smith Labs / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 15
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
A diversity of novel type-2 innate lymphoid cell subpopulations revealed during tumour expansion
Publication: Communications Biology
UBC Author(s): Wilfred Arthur Jefferies (Michael Smith Labs / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 7
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Linear system of hypersurfaces passing through a Galois orbit
Publication: Research in Number Theory
UBC Author(s): Dragos Ghioca (Mathematics / Faculty of Science)
Volume: 10
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication
Nitrogen Fixation and Microbial Communities Associated with Decomposing Seagrass Leaves in Temperate Coastal Waters
Publication: Microbial Ecology
UBC Author(s): Laura Parfrey (Botany / Faculty of Science)
ISSN: 00953628
Volume: 87
Publication Date: December 2024

View Publication

Pages

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. Allanach focused on determining how viral infection influences autoimmune disease in a newly developed humanized mouse model of multiple sclerosis.She observed that Epstein-Barr virus worsened disease by altering the balance of beneficial and detrimental immune subsets in the brain. These findings have implications for how infections should be targeted in diseases like MS. Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)
2024 Dr. Gheorghiu has made a contribution to algebra. One of the simplest algebraic structures are groups. Cohomology is an algebraic tool that can discern geometric objects by looking at their "holes". Then group cohomology is a tool that can discern different groups. Dr. Gheorghiu has developed a generalization of a specific form of group cohomology. Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD)
2024 Dr. Jawahar explored how deep learning models in natural language processing could be more efficient. He introduced new, cutting-edge methods using neural architecture search, improving efficiency and performance tradeoffs in tasks like autocomplete, machine translation, and language modeling. Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD)
2024 Dr. Hamidi studied elliptic curves over quadratic imaginary fields. Using a new and robust technique, Dr. Hamidi proved significant results about the vanishing and bounding of certain invariants. His results could have applications in number theory, cryptography, and other areas of mathematics. Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD)
2024 Dr. Pata is an oceanographer and studied the physical and ecological mechanisms that affect the distribution of zooplankton communities in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. He developed a global database of zooplankton species traits and used that in improving the estimates of the role of zooplankton in ecosystem functioning. Doctor of Philosophy in Oceanography (PhD)
2024 Dr. Noonan developed various tools and methodologies enabling the high-throughput testing and engineering of metabolisms in bacteria and microalgae, with the objective of applying microbial metabolisms to support sustainable industrial practices. Doctor of Philosophy in Genome Science and Technology (PhD)
2024 Dr. Maschmeyer-Tombs examined the use of benchtop nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as a tool to monitor chemical reactions. He evaluated the use of different sampling methods and applied his findings to study a variety of chemical reactions, demonstrating how similar approaches can be used in industrial pharmaceutical research. Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD)
2024 Dr. Montante studied the application of Artificial Intelligence for the advancement of biomedical research. Manual analysis of data extracted from blood samples is becoming increasingly complex. He developed a new Artificial Intelligence algorithm that is simple to use, accurate and able to analyze complex biomedical data in a few minutes. Doctor of Philosophy in Bioinformatics (PhD)
2024 Dr. Zhang developed a flexible statistical model with which the relations among multiple time series variables can be considered after modeling each individual time series. It is applied to macroeconomic variables with changing business cycles. Doctor of Philosophy in Statistics (PhD)
2024 Dr. Lerner investigated Chinook salmon marine ecology. He used lipid analysis to determine Chinook fat content, and chemical tracers to examine sub-adult Chinook marine distribution, foraging, and food webs. This research improves our understanding of the marine life stage of this valuable species and can enhance conservation and management objectives. Doctor of Philosophy in Oceanography (PhD)

Pages