Meet the incoming professors at the Faculty of Science
Our incoming professors span all departments across the Faculty bringing fresh and unique perspectives to campus with their research and teaching experience. Click through to see profiles of the faculty member featured below.
Featured Faculty
Dr. Anotida Madzvamuse
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS
Dr. Anotida Madzvamuse’s research focuses on understanding single cell dynamics and how they migrate through their environments. His interdisciplinary work spans physics, biophysics, cellular biology, developmental biology, biomedical engineering and cancer research.
Dr. Marco Todesco
MICHAEL SMITH LABORATORIES
Dr. Marco Todesco's research focuses on understanding how plants adapt to different and changing environments. He aims to link ecological processes (the traits that allow a plant to survive in a certain environment) to genetic variation (the genes and molecular mechanisms that are important for those adaptations) using an ever-expanding mix of molecular and developmental biology, genetics, genomics, physiology, and field studies.
Dr. Amani Hariri
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY
Dr. Amani Hariri is an Assistant Professor in UBC’s Department of Chemistry. Her research aims to find solutions to the most pressing problems in healthcare today—ranging from Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and diabetes—by combining expertise in molecular design and optics to engineer single molecule tools and transformative platforms for monitoring and diagnostics.
Dr. Geoff Pleiss
DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
New Department of Statistics prof Dr. Geoff Pleiss brings stats and computer science together to improve the accessibility and reliability of AI. His research opens new avenues for different ways of making data-driven discoveries.
Dr. Kayla King
DEPARTMENT OF ZOOLOGY
Dr. Kayla King's research focuses on host-microbial parasite/pathogen systems, which are fascinating for examining the consequences of strong selection and evolution in the lab and nature. Host-pathogen interactions can drive really fast evolutionary change. The King lab tracks this rapid evolution, using genomics and experimental tests, and examines the consequences for animal health and pathogen virulence. Dr. King has also investigated the effects of biodiversity, the microbiome, environmental variation, and nascent interactions on host-pathogen ecology and evolution.
Dr. Selena Sagan
DEPARTMENT OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY
Dr. Selena Sagan is a professor in the department of microbiology and immunology whose research explores how positive-sense RNA viruses—including hepatitis C, dengue and Zika viruses—usurp host cells, replicate their genomes, and cause disease.
Dr. Hal Bradbury
DEPARTMENT OF EARTH, OCEAN AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES
Dr. Hal Bradbury is a chemical oceanographer and a marine isotope biogeochemist. His research looks at carbon cycling in the sediments and how they link to the overlying ocean.
Dr. Joséphine Gantois
INSTITUTE FOR RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY
Dr. Joséphine Gantois combines economics and ecology with qualitative research and machine learning to study how we can produce food while reducing our impact on wildlife habitat. She holds a joint position at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, and Land and Food Systems on Human Dimensions of Biodiversity Conservation.
Dr. Laura Lukes
DEPARTMENT OF EARTH, OCEAN AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES
Dr. Laura Lukes's research focuses on the intersection of geology and psychology, and how to better prepare students for field experiences. Dr. Lukes also studies how people learn in museums.
Dr. Kevin Wei
DEPARTMENT OF ZOOLOGY
Dr. Kevin Wei is a new assistant professor in zoology. His lab combines genomics, evolutionary, molecular, and developmental biology to understand how selfish genetic elements like transposable elements drive the evolution of genome complexity and regulation of developmental processes.
Dr. Shandin Pete
DEPARTMENT OF EARTH, OCEAN AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES
Dr. Shandin Pete is a new assistant professor of teaching at the department of earth, ocean and atmospheric science. His interest lies in Indigenous research methodologies, geoscientific ethnography, Indigenous astronomy, social-political tribal structures, culturally congruent instructional strategies, and Indigenous science philosophies.
Dr. Joel Östblom
DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
Dr. Joel Östblom is a new assistant professor of teaching in the Master of Data Science program. He is passionate about open access communities that can make data science more accessible for students.
Dr. Miranda Holmes-Cerfon
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS
Dr. Miranda Holmes-Cerfon's research is at the intersection of soft matter physics and statistical physics, which helps design nanoscale systems that can be useful in different tools, from vaccines, nano-robots, to battery components and microscopes.
Dr. Lucy Gao
DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
Dr. Lucy Gao's research is in biostatistics, involving data collected with a new technology called single-cell RNA-sequencing, which allows researchers to assess gene activity at the single-cell level.
Dr. Vered Shwartz
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
Computer scientist Dr. Vered Shwartz studies how to improve common sense reasoning in natural language processing (NLP) by building and training machine learning models.
Dr. Jiarui Ding
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
Dr. Jiarui Ding's research is in modeling biological data, with knowledge from decades of biomedical research as prior information encoded in model structures, to uncover the interpretable latent factors.
Dr. Caroline Lemieux
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
Dr. Caroline Lemieux's research aims to help developers improve the correctness, security, and performance of software systems.
Dr. Lindsey Daniels
DEPARTMENT OF MATH
Dr. Lindsey Daniels is a new Assistant Professor of teaching in the department of math. Her teaching focuses on the practical applications of math, and her research focus is finding methodologies that help students stay engaged during the school year.
Dr. Kaitlyn Gaynor
DEPARTMENTS OF BOTANY AND ZOOLOGY
Dr. Kaitlyn Gaynor is a new Assistant Professor in the departments of botany and zoology. Her research examines the effects of human activity on global biodiversity.
Dr. Alex Moore
DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY
Dr. Alex Moore is a new Assistant Professor in the department of botany with a joint appointment in the faculty of forestry's department of forest and conservation sciences. Their researchers focuses on how predator-prey interactions impact the health and functioning of coastal wetland ecosystems and explores the role that cultural values and knowledge play in ecosystem restoration conservation.
Dr. Ilsa Cooke
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY
Dr. Ilsa Cooke is a new Assistant Professor in the department of chemistry. Her research focuses on laboratory surface and gas-phase experiments to unravel the formation of molecules in interstellar space.
