The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three universities in Canada. With an annual research budget of $759 million, UBC funds over 8,000 projects a year.
Michael Smith was a British-born Canadian biochemist and businessman. He shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kary Mullis for his work in developing site-directed mutagenesis. Following a PhD in 1956 from the University of Manchester, he undertook postdoctoral research with Har Gobind Khorana at the British Columbia Research Council in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Subsequently, Smith worked at the Fisheries Research Board of Canada Laboratory in Vancouver before being appointed a professor of biochemistry in the UBC Faculty of Medicine in 1966. Smith's career included roles as the founding director of the UBC Biotechnology Laboratory and the founding scientific leader of the Protein Engineering Network of Centres of Excellence (PENCE). In 1996 he was named Peter Wall Distinguished Professor of Biotechnology. Subsequently, he became the founding director of the Genome Sequencing Centre at the BC Cancer Research Centre.
Bertram Neville Brockhouse, was a Canadian physicist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter", in particular "for the development of neutron spectroscopy".
Dafydd Rhys Williams OC OOnt CCFP FCFP FRCPC FRCP FRCGS is a Canadian physician, public speaker, CEO, author and a retired CSA astronaut. Williams was a mission specialist on two Space Shuttle missions. His first spaceflight, STS-90 in 1998, was a 16-day mission aboard Space Shuttle Columbia dedicated to neuroscience research. His second flight, STS-118 in August 2007, was flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station. During that mission he performed three spacewalks, becoming the third Canadian to perform a spacewalk and setting a Canadian record for total number of spacewalks. These spacewalks combined for a total duration of 17 hours and 47 minutes.
Phil Gold is a Canadian physician, scientist, and professor.
Fredrick Kenneth Hare, was a Canadian climatologist and academic, who researched atmospheric carbon dioxide, climate change, drought, and arid zone climates and was a strong advocate for preserving the natural environment.
Anthony James Pawson was a British-born Canadian scientist whose research revolutionised the understanding of signal transduction, the molecular mechanisms by which cells respond to external cues, and how they communicate with each other. He identified the phosphotyrosine-binding Src homology 2 as the prototypic non-catalytic interaction module. SH2 domains serve as a model for a large family of protein modules that act together to control many aspects of cellular signalling. Since the discovery of SH2 domains, hundreds of different modules have been identified in many proteins.
Robert Edward Bell was a Canadian nuclear physicist and principal of McGill University from 1970 to 1979.
Paul Felix Hoffman, FRSC, OC is a Canadian geologist and Sturgis Hooper Professor Emeritus of Geology at Harvard University. He specializes in the Precambrian era and is widely known for his research on Snowball Earth glaciation in the Neoproterozoic era particularly through his research on sedimentary rocks of Namibia.
John Ross Mackay, was a Canadian geographer. He is most noted for his explorations of permafrost phenomena in the western Canadian Arctic. His 40 plus years of study has enabled the building of pipeline operations and petroleum explorations in areas of frozen ground. The Royal Society of Canada stated the following when Mackay was awarded the Willet G. Miller Medal in 1975:
Edward Allen Hinds FInstP FAPS FRS is a British physicist noted for his work with cold matter.
Sir Martin Hairer is an Austrian-British mathematician working in the field of stochastic analysis, in particular stochastic partial differential equations. He is Professor of Mathematics at EPFL and at Imperial College London. He previously held appointments at the University of Warwick and the Courant Institute of New York University. In 2014 he was awarded the Fields Medal, one of the highest honours a mathematician can achieve. In 2020 he won the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics.
Loren H. Rieseberg is a Canadian-American botanist.
Nancy Margaret Reid is a Canadian theoretical statistician. She is a professor at the University of Toronto where she holds a Canada Research Chair in Statistical Theory. In 2015 Reid became Director of the Canadian Institute for Statistical Sciences.
Barry Morton Gough is a global maritime and naval historian.
Sir Alexander Norman Halliday is a British geochemist and academic who is the Founding Dean of the Columbia Climate School, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He joined the Earth Institute in April 2018, after spending more than a decade at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, during which time he was dean of science and engineering. He is also a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University.
Steven J. Cooke is a Canadian biologist specializing in ecology and conservation physiology of fish. He is best known for his integrative work on fish physiology, behaviour, ecology, and human-dimensions to understand and solve complex environmental problems. He currently is a Canada Research Professor in Environmental Science and Biology at Carleton University and the Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Conservation Physiology.
James C. Hogg is a Canadian physician and one of Canada's leading pulmonary pathologists. Hogg has been recognized for his research into Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. He received the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award in 2013. He became an officer of the Order of Canada in 2005 and was named to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2010. He also received the Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Richard Irving Walcott is a New Zealand geologist known for his work on plate tectonics.
Joanna Yvonne Wilson is a Canadian aquatic toxicologist and physiologist. Wilson is a multidisciplinary scientist whose work intersects the fields of environmental physiology, biochemistry, toxicology, bioinformatics and functional genomics. Her research focuses on studying cytochrome P450 enzymes and the effects of environmental contaminants on marine and freshwater species, the most notable being the impact of pharmaceuticals in the environment. She is a professor in the department of biology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
