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
Salmon lead a life of mystery on the open ocean—the years between leaving their birth rivers and returning to spawn. Most of the 10 to 20 per cent of smolts that make it to the ocean will not survive, but scientists don’t know what’s killing them. "It’s kind of a black… read more
Shawna Narayan (BSc ‘18) is the founder of Empower the Future, a non-profit that helps marginalized youth overcome post-secondary challenges. Empower the Future recently won Surrey's Civic Distinction Award. She discusses how her own experiences shaped her efforts to reach out to inner-city… read more
Dr. Emily V. Fischer (BSc ‘02) got hooked on atmospheric science early. Now she teaches at Colorado State University.Can you tell us a bit about your research?I study non-traditional sources of air pollution, such as wildfires, oil and gas development, and agriculture. In 2018 I led a big field… read more
Leo award-nominated TV host, video journalist, filmmaker and photographer Dunia Tozy is a born story-teller. Raised in Baghdad, Iraq, she studied biology at UBC and broadcast journalism at BCIT.How did your UBC Science experience help you become the person you are?Science teaches you to keep asking… read more
Elaine Leung (BSc ‘04) explains how a weak swimmer who gets seasick can develop a wicked love of marine biology. She’s the founder of Sea Smart, a Vancouver-based charity that delivers ocean conservation education programs to thousands of kids across Canada and beyond.How did you become interested… read more
Vintner Howard Soon (BSc ‘74) was named to the Order of Canada in 2019 for his contributions to the wine industry. He believes that when science, art and culture come together, as they do in wine making, the real magic happens.How did you become interested in wine making?During university I worked… read more
Pioneering wildlife biologist Iola Musfeldt (BA’45, MA’47) completed the first study on muskrats and their parasites in BC. Later on she worked to track down the source of a human trichinosis case. To do this she offered a 25-cent bounty on rat tails. She talks about the very real challenges of… read more
As head of civil space programs at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, astrophysicist Jason Kalirai (BSc '00, MSc '01, PhD '04) oversees a multitude of NASA space exploration missions. That includes DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, a planetary defense mission to… read more
As executive director of the Science Fair Foundation of British Columbia, Madeleine Guenette (BSc 2014) oversees an organization that delivers programming to 40,000 youth each year.What does the Science Fair Foundation do?The Science Fair Foundation of BC is the largest volunteer science and… 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.
Learn more: Musqueam First Nation