When alum Reza Shafii graduated from UBC in 1998 and immediately landed a job with Nortel, he thought it was always going to be this way. Dot com was booming, the company was growing exponentially, and there was a high demand for computer scientists. “We got raise after raise and I was like,… read more
Dr. Taylor Wright was working on his PhD at UBC Chemistry, experimenting with liquid silicone and clothing, along with plastics and other hard materials. The connecting thread? All the materials interacted with light to become functional in some way.One day he shone light on a treated fabric—in… read more
It’s September and more than 10,000 first-year students are joining the UBC Vancouver community. And they’re all looking for a place to eat at a reasonable price—between 30 to 40 per cent of students are food insecure according to UBC’s Food Hub. Thanks to an app called Campus Nutrition… read more
“There’s this perception that kids that are good at maths and science are nerdy or uncool,” says alum Ramita Anand. “But I try to help kids understand that all life is science and that failure is part of learning. Hypotheses may have gone wrong—so you thought this friendship was a good one, but… read more
When Dr. Myriam Khalfallah arrived in Vancouver from Tunisia in 2013, she had just earned a bachelor’s degree as an agronomic engineer specializing in fisheries and environment at the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia (INAT), the University of Carthage. She visited UBC in hopes of… read more
Nishal Kumar ran into a problem in the summer of 2017. He was tackling North Vancouver’s three-kilometre, leg-burning Grouse Grind mountain trail a few times a week—but noticed if he’d had just a couple of drinks containing alcohol the night before, he didn’t feel in top… read more
For alum Aminollah (Amin) Sabzevari, science has led to a career in law—which eventually wound its way back to the Point Grey campus. As an undergraduate, Sabzevari (BSc Honours, 2008) studied biophysics. But as he drew closer to graduation, a general interest in health became more… read more
Dr. Emily Seo compares publishing her first book to earning a PhD degree—you start off with research, learn as much as you can, then keep moving forward until you hit a block and have to solve a puzzle. She’s been successful at both ventures, graduating from UBC Chemistry with her… read more
As 2022 drew to a close, Rishika Selvakumar (BSc 2022) was awarded the B.C. Medal of Good Citizenship in recognition of her dedication and selfless service to her community—which includes UBC. When Selvakumar entered UBC Science in 2019 she continued the mental health advocacy volunteer… read more
Mika McKinnon loves rocks. It’s a trait she seems to have passed on to her toddler who likes to pick up rocks and give them to strangers as a way of making friends. Rocks line what McKinnon calls her “nonlinear career path”—including what could have been a bumpy… read more
We honour xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam) on whose ancestral, unceded territory UBC Vancouver is situated. UBC Science is committed to building meaningful relationships with Indigenous peoples so we can advance Reconciliation and ensure traditional ways of knowing enrich our teaching and research.
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