Meet our scholars

Apply Public Scholars Award

The PSI Network consists of 347 doctoral students and PhDs from across the full range of disciplines at UBC.

Below you can navigate their profiles based on year of scholarship, faculty, theme; read about their research; and watch brief videos of their talks. 

Jelena Todorovic

Serbia
Doctor of Philosophy in Classics (PhD)
Disability Theatre and Roman Comedy

Monica Shank Lauwo

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Language and Literacy Education (PhD)
Stories of lives and literacies: Social class, translanguaging and imagined futures of Tanzanian children

Lara Sarlak

Turkey
Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD)
Infrastructures of the Displaced: a case study of Istanbul

Michelle Hak Hepburn

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD)
Thinking with trees to see the forest: Huayruro trees and deforestation in San Martin, Peru

Matthew Tomkinson

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre (PhD)
Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade: A Podcast

Sara Press

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD)
Diagnosing Disparities: Unsettling the Anglo-Colonial Standards of Health and Normality in Canada and the United States

Fiona Beaty

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology (PhD)
Marine resilience in the Anthropocene: understanding the adaptive capacity of marine socio-ecological systems to change

Pranav Shrestha

Nepal
Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical Engineering (PhD)
Affordable and portable microscopy for screening sickle cell disease in rural/remote communities

Khadija Anjum

Pakistan
Doctor of Philosophy in Planning (PhD)
Planning for food security of low-income groups amid rising food price volatility: A gendered analysis

Jacob Stubbs

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD)
CoBrA Community Brain Art Initiative: Co-created brain health promotion with the Downtown Eastside community

Kelsey Timler

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD)
Participatory Action Research to Support Food Justice Programming for Justice-Involved Women and Children

Leah Shipton

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD)
The governing dynamics of global health multistakeholder partnerships

Santiago Farías Calderón

Mexico
Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre (PhD)
Crossing Borders: Translation, Translocation, and the Plays of Edgar Chías.

Raphael Roccor

Germany
Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)
Spinning Straw into Golden Liquids – Making High-value Oils from Biomass Residues

Rishad Habib

Bangladesh
Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration in Marketing and Behavioural Science (PhD)
Understanding the socio-cultural dynamics that shape our perceptions of morality and determine whether and why we act in ethical ways

Sarah Dickson-Hoyle

Australia
Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry (PhD)
Wildfire as a catalyst for co-management: Indigenous knowledge, stewardship and restoration of (post)fire landscapes in British Columbia

Michael W Brunt

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Animal Biology (PhD)
How perceptions of transparency influence the social acceptability of animal use in science

Andrea Hoff

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Language and Literacy Education (PhD)
Future Tense: Exploring young people’s agency and resilience towards the future through the creation of autobiographical comics

Alexa Tanner

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)
Natural hazard risk in context: Examining contextual factors that influence risk perceptions and associated decisions

Dacotah-Victoria Splichalova

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)
Narratives of Water: Exploring Hydrosocial Relations and Water (In)security in Canada and New Zealand

Courtney van Ballegooie

Switzerland
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD)
Patient Understanding of Modern Chemotherapeutics: Has the increasing complexity of chemotherapy impacted patients quality of life and understanding?

Aidan Nikiforuk

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD)
Decentralization of Hepatitis C Virus Diagnostics to Rural Canadian Communities

Kaye Hare

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Language and Literacy Education (PhD)
All the Feels’ – Exploring Educators’ Embodied Experiences of Sex Education

William Harding

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD)
Educational Virtual Reality Simulations

Lois Evans

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD)
More Zeros, Less Ones: Digital Storage Management, Big Data, and Climate Change

Benjamin Hopkins

United States of America
Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano (DMA)
Performance & Protest: The Political Pianist

Madison Stevens

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Resources, Environment and Sustainability (PhD)
‘Righting' Conservation: Exploring Pathways for Realizing Stewardship Rights in Protected Areas

Kimberly Sharpe

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD)
Geographic variation in healthcare spending and utilization and its impact on return to work for injured workers

Isobel Mouat

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD)
Teaching science beyond content: introducing what science is and how it is done to first-year students

Wilson Mendes

Brazil
Doctor of Philosophy in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems (PhD)
Healing Synergies: Indigenous Land-based Pedagogies and Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the City

Susan Sechrist

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD)
Go Figure: Writing Numerate Literary Fiction

Max Chewinski

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD)
Public Participation and Disaster Governance: Procedural Justice in Rural British Columbia

Christine Ou

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD)
Behavioral-educational sleep support for parents with postpartum mood disturbances

Ildiko Kovacs

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum Studies (PhD)
Participatory Planning Pedagogy: How Children's Engagement in Community Planning Supports Environmental and Sustainability Education

Janina Krabbe

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD)
Stories of Resistance: identifying sites of change towards decolonizing research practices with women affected by violence

Francisco Javier Gómez López

Colombia
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (PhD)
Territorial Affirmation: Land Autonomy, Sustainable production and conservation practices in Colombian páramo highland communities

April Mazzuca

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD)
The Cedar Project: Evaluating a culturally-safe program to support the delivery of optimal treatment of hepatitis C among Indigenous people who use drugs in British Columbia.

Celina Solís

Mexico
Doctor of Philosophy in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems (PhD)
Decolonizing Palates: Food Security Strengthening through underutilized vegetables revitalization in the Mayan Region of Chiapas, Mexico

Patrick Dowd

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD)
Golden Letters Arranged like Stars and Planets: An Ethnography of the Contemporary Life of Tibetan Language

Gabrielle Berry

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Cinema and Media Studies (PhD)
[♪♪♪]: The Sonic Resonances of Captions

Mai-Lei (Maggie) Woo Kinshella

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Women+ and Children's Health Sciences (PhD)
Investigating the relationship between maternal diet and pregnancy hypertension in sub-Saharan Africa

Jonathan Eaton

United States of America
Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD)
Exploring Cultural Heritage as an Opportunity for Recovery in the Aftermath of Disaster

Kate Wahl

Germany
Doctor of Philosophy in Reproductive and Developmental Sciences (PhD)
Storytelling as a tool for sharing knowledge with health policy makers

Karl Zimmermann

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical and Biological Engineering (PhD)
Biological ion exchange: the power of biological water treatment

Fernanda Rojas-Marchini

Chile
Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD)
'Naturalezas emergentes': The Turn toward Market-based Biodiversity Conservation in the South of Chile

Taeh Haddock

Canada
Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)
Testing the Efficacy of Parental Intervention Workshops on Children's Social Cognition and Social-Emotional Health

Áurea Vericat Rocha

Canada
Braiding Lived Experiences: The Making of a Collaborative Inquiring Community of Indigenous Early Childhood Educators

Yeeun Lee

Korea, Republic of
Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)
Acts of kindness as an antidote to social disconnection: Validating an online intervention program to increase social engagement in Lower Mainland communities

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