Faculty of Science

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 40 per cent of the Faculty's graduate enrollments, and the percentage of international students has increased to 48 per cent over the past decade.

Faculty Website

Fact Sheet

Mission

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

633

Master's Students

(2019)
967

Doctoral Students

(2019)
350

Graduate Degrees Awarded

(2019)
452

Full-Time Faculty

(2019)
120.3

million in Research Awards

(2018/2019)

Research Centres

Biodiversity, Evolution and Ecology

Computational Sciences and Mathematics

Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

Geophysical Inversion Facility
Lithoprobe: Canada's National Geoscience Project
Mineral Deposit Research Unit
Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research
Seismic Laboratory for Imaging and Modeling

Genomics and Biological Sciences

Centre for High-Throughput Biology
Geomatics for Informed Decisions Network
Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics
Michael Smith Laboratories

Human-Computer Interaction

Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems
Vancouver Institute for Visual Analytics

Life Sciences

Chemistry and Materials Science

Physics

Sustainability

Research Facilities

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.

Research Highlights

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
Li, Hongbin	Department of Chemistry	Biophysical chemistry, biomaterials, single molecule studies, biological, atomic force, polymer chemistry
Li, Xin	Michael Smith Laboratories, Department of Botany	Molecules in plants, plants defence against pathogen infection, plant genes
Lister, Alison	Department of Physics & Astronomy	Elementary Particles, Large Hadron Collier (LHC), ATLAS experiment, Search for physics beyond the standard model, top quarks, dark matter, Detector development
Little, James	Department of Computer Science	Artificial intelligence, computational vision, geographic information systems, robotics
Loewen, Philip	Department of Mathematics	Mathematics, Calculus of Variations
Macdonald, Colin	Department of Mathematics	List of publications; The Closest Point Method: a new method for PDEs on surfaces; Time-stepping for PDEs: constructing Runge-Kutta methods, strong-stability-preserving methods (visit the SSP Site); WENO spatial discretizations; The Predicted Sequential Regularization Method; List of talks and presentations.
MacFarlane, Andrew	Department of Chemistry	Chemical physics, Electronic and magnetic properties of crystalline solids, especially strongly correlated materials such as the cuprate high temperature superconductors
MacLachlan, Mark	Department of Chemistry	Nanomaterials, Supramolecules and Autoassembling, Inorganic and Organometallic Compounds, Biomaterials, Basic Materials, Supramolecular Chemistry, Cellulose nanocrystals, Chitin, Materials Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry
MacLean, Karon	Department of Computer Science	Information Systems, human-computer interaction, haptic interfaces, human-robot interaction, design of user interfaces
Maddison, Wayne	Department of Zoology, Department of Botany	Arachnology, Biodiversity, Spiders, Phylogenetic Theory and Programming
Madison, Kirk	Department of Physics & Astronomy	Condensed matter, atomic, molecular and optical physics
Maldonado, Maite	Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences	Phytoplankton Trace Metal Physiology
Mank, Judith	Department of Zoology	evolution, How selection acts on males and females within a species, How the genome responds to contradictory selection to encode sexually dimorphic traits, Sex chromosomes, Gene regulation, Sexual conflict
Marcus, Brian Harry	Department of Mathematics	Coding and information theory, symbolic dynamics, ergodic theory and dynamical systems
Marshall, Katie	Department of Zoology	Environmental Change, Marine biodiversity, Population Ecology, invertebrates and temperature adaptation
Martin, Gregory	Department of Mathematics	Number theory, Diophantine Approximation and Classical Analysis
Martone, Patrick	Department of Botany	Protist, Plants, Physiology, Taxonomy and Systematics, Ecology and Quality of the Environment, Evolution and Phylogenesis, Biomaterials, Solid Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics, Phycology, Macroalgae, evolution, biomechanics, Intertidal Zone, Ecology
Marziali, Andre	Department of Physics & Astronomy	Teaching methods, pedagogy, Robotics in education, Nanotechnology, Engineering Physics, Genomics, Biophysics, Genomics Technologies
Matsuuchi, Linda	Department of Zoology	Cell signaling of specific membrane receptors, combining aspects of Cell Biology, Immunology , Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Matthews, Jaymie Mark	Department of Physics & Astronomy	Stellar seismology, stellar structure and evolution, exoplanets, magnetic peculiar stars, photometry and spectroscopy, space astronomy
Matthews, Philip	Department of Zoology	respiratory adaptations of animals, primarily insects
Matthews, Benjamin	Department of Zoology	Comparative Physiology, Genome of mosquitoes, Aedes aeygpti mosquitoes, Arboviral pathogens, Dengue fever, Yellow fever, Chikungunya, Zika
Mattison, Thomas	Department of Physics & Astronomy	Subatomic physics, Particle & Nuclear Physics, Applied Physics
Mayer, Ulrich	Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences	hydrogeology, low-temperature geochemistry, groundwater contamination, groundwater remediation, mine waste management
McAllister, Murdoch	Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries	Statistical methods for fisheries risk assessment, estimation, decision analysis and management strategy evaluation

Graduate Student Profiles

Helina Jolly

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

Investigating the perceptions and values of ecosystem functions through gender lens - A socioecological inquiry of Indigenous (Adivasi) communities in Kerala, India

Vinny Ricciardi

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

Examining the food security, climate resilience, and equity implications of farm size

Analise Hofmann

Doctor of Philosophy in Genome Science and Technology (PhD)

Re-contextualizing interdisciplinary knowledge in biology laboratory courses to improve student learning outcomes.

Kylynda Bauer

Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)

Diet and Gut Microbiota-Brain Axis

Neha Choudhary

Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD)

Inorganic Medicinal Chemistry

Kate Thompson

Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)

The impact of the rare metabolism of photoferrotrophy - photosynthetic iron oxidation - on modern and ancient environments.

Zhongshou Wu

Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD)

Identification and Analysis of Immune Regulating E3 Ligases and Their Ubiquitination Substrates

Evan Bowness

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

Transformative Food Activism: Food Sovereignty and Urban Agriculture

Recent Publications

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

Recent Thesis Submissions

Practical and green design strategies for the catalytic synthesis of functional materials (Chemistry - PHD)
Visualizing heterogeneous data in genomic epidemiology (Computer Science - PHD)
Functional genomic analysis of novel secondary cell wall genes in poplar (Populus trichocarpa) (Botany - PHD)
ABCF1 is a novel E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme that controls Toll-like receptor-mediated innate immune responses and cytokine storm during sepsis (Microbiology and Immunology - PHD)
Elucidating the role of COBRA in plant development in Arabidopsis thaliana (Botany - MSC)
Computational studies on functional materials (Chemistry - MSC)
Determination of small medicinal molecules by capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry with on-line concentration techniques (Chemistry - MSC)
Early-life gut microbiota dysbiosis in children with atopic dermatitis (Microbiology and Immunology - MSC)
Validation of Monte Carlo simulation of 6 MV photon beam delivered by the Vero4DRT linear accelerator using BEAMnrc and DOSXYZnrc (Physics - MSC)
Functional analysis of homeodomain transcription factors in secondary cell wall formation in Arabidopsis thaliana (Botany - PHD)
Monte Carlo modelling of peripheral dose and risk of secondary malignancy in flattening-filter-free and 10 MV photon beams for paediatric radiotherapy (Physics - PHD)
Electrodeposited DNA monolayers on gold : creation, evaluation and optimization (Chemistry - PHD)
Analysis of a 2D model of quorum sensing characterized by a transition from bistability in spatially coupled signalling compartments (Mathematics - MSC)
The role of the Lyn tyrosine kinase in innate immunity and intestinal inflammation (Microbiology and Immunology - PHD)
Financial knowledge graph construction (Computer Science - MSC)
Evaluating microbial community responses to blended biofuel contamination (Microbiology and Immunology - MSC)
New gluing methods and applications to nonlinear elliptic and parabolic equations (Mathematics - PHD)
Thermal conductivity in ISOL target materials : development of a numerical approach and an experimental apparatus (Engineering Physics - MASC)
Negative curves in blowups of weighted projective planes (Mathematics - PHD)
The geology, alteration and timing of porphyry intrusions and breccias associated with the development of Los Helados porphyry copper-gold deposit, Chile (Geological Sciences - MSC)
Donaldson-Thomas theory of quantum Fermat quintic threefolds (Mathematics - PHD)
Personal data curation in the cloud age : individual differences and design opportunities (Computer Science - PHD)
Combinatorial properties of maps on finite posets (Mathematics - PHD)
High-throughput analysis using novel sample preparation method and direct analysis in real time mass spectrometry (Chemistry - PHD)
Function-oriented synthesis of subersic acid and makassaric acid analogues (Chemistry - MSC)
High-throughput kinematic tracking of bird wings using inertial sensor arrays (Zoology - MSC)
Metal chelating agents for medicinal radionuclides (Chemistry - PHD)
Elucidating the mechanism of type 2 innate lymphoid cell-mediated tumour elimination (Microbiology and Immunology - MSC)
Synthesis and reactivity of dinucleating di(diamino)phenolate ligands for enforcing cooperativity (Chemistry - MSC)
A mitochondrial terminomics technique to study human cell death during bacterial infection (Microbiology and Immunology - PHD)

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
2019	Dr. Scribner demonstrated the effect of contamination on the mineralogy of the Rau pegmatite group. Her research provides strong evidence that contamination has a more prominent influence on the chemical signature of pegmatites than previously recognized. She also developed a validated assessment to measure learning gains in mineralogy courses.	Doctor of Philosophy in Geological Sciences (PhD)
2019	Dr. Lewis developed gels using nanoparticles made from wood. The gels are water-filled, soft materials that can change their properties in a controllable way. These new materials have potential applications in environmental remediation, tissue engineering, and energy storage.	Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD)
2019	Dr. Sun used a model of the cystic fibrosis lung to study how bacteria use motility to adapt to these kinds of environments. She studied a new form of bacterial motility known as surfing and found that it contributes to virulence and antibiotic resistance regulated by complex genetic networks.	Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)
2019	Dr. Patton analyzed the concentration of rare earth elements in marine sediment and constructed a numerical model of those elements in pore water.This research explores how these elements are cycled between sediment and pore water and questions the validity of previous interpretations of these elements as a water mass tracer preserved through time.	Doctor of Philosophy in Oceanography (PhD)
2019	In our global battle against drug-resistant superbugs, there is a limited arsenal of antibiotics. Dr. Behroozian discovered broad-spectrum antimicrobial activities in a natural clay from Kisameet Bay, British Columbia, and clarified the active principal components and modes of action. Her contributions may lead to development of novel treatments.	Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)
2019	Dr. Leigh considered two enumerative problems in geometry that are motivated by mathematical physics. In the first he developed a new theory for counting a special type of object. In the second he provided an explicit computation involving a string-theoretic space called the "banana threefold".	Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD)
2019	Dr. Rahjoo investigated the mechanics of rock fracturing, strength and deformation, and developed models for the behaviour of fracturing rocks. With tunnels and mines heading towards greater depths, this knowledge is critical for safe and stable excavations. His findings contribute to the advancement of rock mechanics and rock engineering.	Doctor of Philosophy in Geological Engineering (PhD)
2019	Dr. Neuenfeld applied quantum information theory to study gravitational physics. He investigated how information is transferred in processes involving gravity, and explored how quantum information restricts the spacetimes that can be realized in nature. His results contribute to a better understanding of a quantum theory of gravity.	Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD)
2019	Dr. Campbell examined how publication policy impacts the reliability of scientific research from a statistical perspective. He proposed novel policy prescriptions and modelled how adopting these could transform the incentives driving research. This work aims to address the reproducibility crisis and issues of publication bias.	Doctor of Philosophy in Statistics (PhD)
2019	Dr. Didier found evidence of a previously unreported membrane steroid receptor in a Basel vertebrate. This work has wide ranging implications for our understanding of steroid/receptor evolution in vertebrates.	Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology (PhD)