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 | NID |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Dr. Fong's research examines the representation of Asian Canadians in museums today. By analyzing the experiences of community leaders, museum staff and visitors, she argues for the importance of community-centered curating in helping museums become more inclusive and welcoming spaces. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Iyamu explored design and implementation factors influencing access to GetCheckedonline, BC's online service for STI testing. He found these services may not always increase testing access for historically marginalized populations if their design and implementation do not reduce the effort needed for testing and argued for empowering them to make informed testing choices through personalized education. | Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Jiao’s research examines factors that influence the provision of harm reduction services in the emergency room. Her work highlights systemic tensions and demonstrates that staff’s efforts are impacted by inconsistent education and unsupportive policies. These findings can inform harm reduction implementation in emergency rooms across Canada. | Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD) |
| 2024 | T cells play a pivotal role in human immunity. Dr. Zhu shows that the differentially regulated chromatin states in the T cells from newborns and leukemia patients could impair T-cell differentiation, resulting in immune deficiency or cancer. Her research reveals putative targets for therapy to restore the immune function of these impaired T cells. | Doctor of Philosophy in Genome Science and Technology (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Vikulova studied risk factors and barriers to preventing early-onset heart disease. She found that many young adults are unaware of their high risk and do not get preventive treatment and that screening first-degree relatives of patients with early-onset heart disease may help identify those at high risk and those with silent plaques in heart blood vessels to initiate preventive therapy timely. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Iliev's work focused on the development of new cancer therapies. It included the design, synthesis and testing of experimental inhibitors, pushing the boundaries of traditional medicinal chemistry approaches. His top bioactive compounds will proceed to more advanced testing towards becoming next-generation cancer therapeutics. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Sciences (PhD) |
| 2024 | This research project created a computer model of localised wound infection based on nursing knowledge. The resulting model was able to show that identification of wound infection is a complex process, and that complex nursing knowledge can be captured in computerised models. | Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD) |
| 2024 | Genetic differences among trees from different locations make them physically adapted to local environments, but vulnerable to climate change. Dr. Grubinger used drones, laser scanning, and multispectral imagery to quantify traits related to climate adaptation in genetic field trials of conifers, revealing novel patterns in genetic adaptation and establishing a proof-of-concept for drone phenotyping. | Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Metcalfe-Roach identified a connection between specific dietary patterns and the onset of Parkinson's disease, and showed that this connection may be partially due to the influence of diet on bacterial populations present in the intestinal tract. This work may lead to new interventions to reduce the burden of Parkinson's disease pre- and post-diagnosis. | Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Neels examined the relation between full and partial belief. He concluded that what we rationally believe depends on which questions we are asking. This research aids in understanding how statistical evidence should be used in legal contexts and how we evaluate belief in conspiracy theories. | Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Belley developed first-principles quantum many-body methods to further our theoretical understanding of neutrinoless double beta decay: a hypothetical process that sheds light on many properties of the neutrino. He also developed machine learning algorithms to greatly accelerate calculations for its first reliable uncertainty quantification. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Zhu investigated the fabrication, characterization and modeling of porous Ge (PGe). Dr. Zhu’s work achieved PGe in both n- and p-type Ge-on-Si by bipolar electrochemical etching method, studied the impact of threading dislocations, and first demonstrated uniaxial optical anisotropic property in PGe, enabling its applications in optoelectronics. | Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Engineering (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Rojas-Bernal showed that the distributional reallocation of expenditure across households affects an economy's output through the reallocation of resources across firms. He does this for an environment with general connectivity between firms and household heterogeneity in income and expenditure. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Gholami studied the problem of 3D human pose estimation. He proposed a framework utilizing multi-view images for training and reducing reliance on annotated data. Additionally, he proposed novel methods for synthetic data generation. He also studied the practical application of 3D pose estimation in monitoring Parkinson’s patients. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Hanlon’s research investigated several poetry matches from tenth- to twelfth-century Japan. His research examined matches with clever riddles, sassy love poems, and political drama, provided insight into the history of Japanese poetic games, and included translations and explanations for 140 waka poems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Gopal studied how different signals are altered in blood cells and surrounding cells within the bone marrow of Myelodysplastic syndrome and Acute myeloid leukemia patients. The findings from this research lead to the identification of a potential new biomarker to predict therapy response. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. John showed that the division between loggers and environmentalists over old growth forests has been created by mass media marketing and forest industry publicity campaigns. Environmentalism has been a part of woodworker cultures on South Vancouver Island since the early twentieth century, the "War in the Woods" was partially constructed by forces wishing to splinter a united front between forest workers and eco-activists. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2024 | Although nightly sleep and daily stress are closely linked, however, the pathways remain unclear. Dr. Wen's work explored how sleep relates to stressful experiences on a daily basis and how stressful experiences, in turn, affect sleep.The findings underscore sleep’s importance to daily well-being and can inform current sleep interventions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2024 | Molecules often come together or self-assemble using weak bonds to form ordered structures, but controlling their sizes and shapes on self-assembly is challenging. Dr. Das Gupta investigated specific metal compounds that self-assemble into precise, controlled nanostructures with promising potential for catalytic and photochemical applications. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Rafizadeh's work investigated the comparative effectiveness of clozapine versus other antipsychotics in improving outcomes related to non-nicotine substance use disorders, which commonly co-occurs with schizophrenia. It also explored factors influencing clozapine metabolism to tailor dosing for individuals and mitigate potential side effects. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Tafech's research focused on advancing gene therapies for cystic fibrosis, the most common fatal genetic disorder affecting Canadian children and young adults. His work identified nano-based strategies that significantly enhanced CRISPR-mRNA delivery and gene editing in CF, driving promising progress in this disease and other genetic disorders. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Sciences (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Kong studied pattern formation phenomena of several reaction-diffusion systems involving advection arising from biology, ecology and finance. These theoretical analyses assist us in understanding the effects of biased movement on structures and qualitative properties of localized patterns. | Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Denyer investigated how the brain controls complex bimanual movements using transcranial magnetic stimulation. He discovered that bimanual movements do not rely on activity within a single brain region. Instead, they are likely underpinned by activity within a distributed network of brain regions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Life studied mouse dementia and mouse autism. In looking across the lifespan, he obtained functional insights into a gene that shapes our behaviour and personality both early and late in life. His work establishes two strains of mice that are facilitating the development of new therapies for dementia. | Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Genetics (PhD) |
| 2024 | Dr. Afifi’s doctoral studies focused on light processing silicon microchips that can generate and filter quantum states of light. He developed photonic integrated circuits to generate quantum light for quantum information processing applications. His findings contribute to scaling up photonic quantum computing and secure communication systems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |