A total of nine UBC faculty members have been announced by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) as Fellows and as Members of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.
Seven UBC faculty have been named Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada. The fellowship of the RSC comprises over 2000 Canadian scholars, artists, and scientists, peer-elected as the best in their field. These are distinguished men and women from all branches of learning who have made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life
Two faculty are named as new members of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. The College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists is Canada’s first national system of multidisciplinary recognition for the emerging generation of Canadian intellectual leadership.
The 2019 Fellows and Members will be welcomed into the RSC this November, at a celebration in Ottawa.
Citations courtesy of the Royal Society of Canada
New fellows
Susanna Braund (Classical, Near Eastern & Religious Studies)
Susanna Braund is the world expert on the translation history of the major Latin poet Virgil. She earlier pioneered literary study of Roman satire and cultural study of the emotions in Roman literature. She produced acclaimed scholarly editions and translations of Juvenal, Persius, Lucan and Seneca. Her synthesizing approach combines philological methods and contemporary theoretical frameworks to illuminate and deepen our appreciation of Latin literature and Roman culture.
David Huntsman (Pathology & Laboratory Medicine)
David Huntsman has used pathology and genetic tools to redefine our understanding of ovarian and several rare cancers including hereditary stomach cancer. He proposed, developed, and promulgated the current subtype-specific and biologically informed approach to ovarian cancer research, prevention, and treatment. He has been a leader and mentor within the Canadian cancer research community. His research is highly cited and most importantly has saved lives.
Patricia Schulte (Zoology)
Patricia Schulte is a world-leading authority in evolutionary physiology. She is internationally recognized for her work linking genomics, epigenomics, biochemistry and physiology to assess the performance of fishes in a changing environment. Her pioneering work on the molecular mechanisms that underlie inter-individual variation in resilience to environmental change has had significant implications for both the conservation of natural fish populations and aquaculture in a changing world.
Poul Sorensen (Pathology & Laboratory Medicine)
Poul Sorensen is an internationally renowned clinician-scientist whose pioneering work uncovered numerous genetic and biological drivers of aggressive childhood cancers, many of which were subsequently directly linked to the biology of adult malignancies. He was the first to show that NTRK gene fusions are recurrent oncogenic drivers, which are now estimated to occur in 1% of human cancers, leading to the development of recently approved drugs to target these lesions.
Rashid Sumaila (Institute for Oceans & Fisheries)
Rashid Sumaila is one of the world’s most innovative researchers on the future of the oceans, integrating the social, economic and fisheries sciences to build novel pathways towards sustainable fisheries. His work has challenged today’s approaches to marine governance, generating exciting new ways of thinking about our relationship to the marine biosphere, such as protecting the high seas as a “fish bank” for the world and using “intergeneration discount rates” for natural resource projects.
Michael Whitlock (Zoology)
Michael Whitlock is distinguished for his contributions to theoretical and empirical population genetics. He is responsible for many of the foundational population-genetic results about how evolution works in a spatial context, and he has made significant contributions to the methodology of measuring evolutionary processes. Whitlock has written a leading text on statistical methods and played a key role in establishing data archiving for the major publications in his field.
Juncheng Wei (Mathematics)
Juncheng Wei, Canada Research Chair in nonlinear PDEs, has made many groundbreaking work in the broad area of pure and applied mathematics. He was invited to International Congress of Mathematicians for his surprising counter-example to De Giorgi Conjecture, which represents an extensive and fundamental contribution to the field of nonlinear PDEs. His interdisciplinary research uncovers the hidden mathematical mechanisms in pattern formations in complex physical and biological systems.
New Members of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists
Vanessa Andreotti (Educational Studies)
Vanessa Andreotti holds a CRC in Race, Inequalities and Global Change. She is internationally recognized for her critical scholarship and leading-edge pedagogical and artistic experimentations in the fields of global citizenship and international development education. Her research problematizes and offers alternatives to mainstream educational approaches that promote simplistic understandings of global problems and solutions, paternalistic engagements between dominant and marginalized groups, and ethnocentric views of justice, sustainability and change.
Lukas Chrostowski (Electrical & Computer Engineering)
Lukas Chrostowski, a Principal Investigator of the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (UBC), is recognized for his leadership in research and education in the design of silicon photonic devices and systems for applications in optical communications and biosensors. His present work is focused on developing new photonics-based information processing circuits: neuromorphic processors, quantum communication, and quantum computers.
In addition, Thomas J. Ruth was elected as an RSC Fellow as a Researcher Emeritus at TRIUMF. Dr. Ruth is also Emeritus Senior Scientist at the British Columbia Cancer Research Centre and holds an adjunct professorship in Medicine at UBC as well as in Physics at the University of Victoria and has held an adjunct professorship in Chemistry at Simon Fraser University. Thomas J. Ruth is a world leader in the production of radioisotopes for research and application as is evidenced by his numerous publications, collaborations and consultations. With seminal discoveries that have defined radioisotope production globally, and his visionary pursuit of a range of applications that span health, environmental and resource sectors, Dr. Ruth has established a legacy of international renown.