AI can tell if a patient battling cancer needs mental health support
Psychiatrists and computer scientists at UBC and BC Cancer have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) model that can accurately...
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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
- Biodiversity Research Centre
- Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
- Centre for Microbial Diversity and Evolution
Computational Sciences and Mathematics
- Data Science Institute
- Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems
- Institute of Applied Mathematics
- Statistical Consulting and Research Laboratory
- Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences
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
- Centre for Blood Research
- Centre for Microbial Diseases and Immunity Research
- Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health
- International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries
- Life Sciences Institute
- Michael Smith Laboratories
- Neglected Global Diseased Initiative
Chemistry and Materials Science
- Advanced Materials and Process Engineering Laboratory
- Max Planck-UBC Centre for Quantum Materials
- Quantum Devices Group
- Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute
Physics
- Antihydrogen Trapping and Spectroscopy at CERN
- Pacific Institute for Theoretical Physics
- TRIUMF: Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics
- UBC ATLAS Project at Large Hadron Collider
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
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
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Dr Nodwell found a way to make a new type of anticancer molecule that was originally isolated from a sponge from the oceans off of Papua New Guinea. This complex molecule, called "ceratamine A" shows great potential as an anticancer therapeutic and is currently being evaluated for its suitability as a drug. The new chemical structure of this molecule provides a possible different route to cancer therapy, expanding the currently known list of anicancer drugs. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
| 2009 | Monte Carlo methods have become the standard tool to solve many problems in statistics and scientific computing. Dr. Holenstein developed a novel Monte Carlo methodology for efficient sampling from high-dimensional distributions. The methods are demonstrated on problems in statistics, biology, chemistry, and finance. | Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD) |
| 2009 | Dr. Backer laid the theoretical foundation for algorithms that steer car-like robots in order to avoid obstacles. His work improves prior results in that it is more general, is more efficient, and provides explicit performance guarantees. | Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD) |
| 2009 | Dr. Andronescu has developed the best available thermodynamic models of RNA structure formation. To do this, she has leveraged rigorous optimization techniques to make new inferences from large RNA databases. Her models are being adopted by RNA structure prediction web servers world-wide, and are of great value to molecular biologists. | Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD) |
| 2009 | Dr. Tom-Yew characterized two new classes of iron-binding proteins from human pathogens that cause food-borne illness and whooping cough. A growth-essential iron-uptake role was shown and X-ray diffraction methods were used to elucidate the unique iron-binding mechanisms of these proteins, which have important implications for iron transport. | Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD) |
| 2009 | Dr Good developed new techniques for the acquisition and analysis of computational representations of biological knowledge. He investigated systems that allow thousands of independent researchers to contribute to scientific knowledge bases. This research helps to define new modes of scientific collaboration that operate on the scale of the Web. | Doctor of Philosophy in Bioinformatics (PhD) |
| 2009 | Dr. Kaneda studied how trees produce wood in order to understand mechanisms of cell- wall precursor flows at the sub-cellular level. Her work made a significant contribution to our understanding of how trees export lignin, one of the most abundant biopolymers on earth. | Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD) |
| 2009 | Dr. Esson described the development of cytoskeleton-associated surface patterns in single-celled algae and showed how changes in highly coordinated developmental processes may have influenced their evolution and biodiversity. This research contributes to our understanding of how complex cellular structures evolve. | Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Hon studied the interfaces between calcium metal and various semiconducting plastics that are used in electronic devices in place of common inorganic semiconductors like silicon. These studies yielded information about the chemistry involved, which is important for making efficient devices. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Archambault explored graph visualization techniques in which a user can decide which parts of a graph are drawn. Graphs are diagrams which help communicate the relationships between concepts or things. The techniques developed in this work may help researchers find higher-level patterns in graphs. | Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD) |