Prof Talk

Farha Khan

Prof Talkis a radio talk show that aims to bring professors at the University of British Columbia talking about current/past events at the local and international level.

The show has two aims:

The first is to provide a space for faculty to engage in dialogue about important events and to share their current research on the subject at hand;
The second aim is to provide a space for interdisciplinary thinking, as interviews with professors are made with faculty from a variety of disciplines.

Every Tuesday at 3:00PM on CiTR 101.9 on the FM dial, live streaming audio at www.citr.ca; prof.talk@ubc.ca

LISTEN TO PROF TALK:

Tina Loo - On Canadian History

Posted on Jan 07, 2022

Why are certain people and places vulnerable? Who is responsible for remedying the situation? And what is fair? Why is historical research important?

Tina Loo is a professor in the department of history at the University of British Columbia. She is a leading scholar of Canadian and environmental history. Her work has focused on the nature and impacts of the state’s actions to manage human and non-human environments in the interests of development. She is also recognized for her outstanding and innovative teaching techniques and commitment to mentoring.

In her latest, book, Moved by the State, Forced Relocation and Making a Good Life in Canada she explores the contradiction between intention and consequence as resettlement played out among Inuit in the central Arctic, fishing families in Newfoundland’s outports, farmers and loggers in Quebec’s Gaspé region, Black residents of Halifax’s Africville, and Chinese Canadians in Vancouver’s East Side. In the process, she reveals the optimistic belief underpinning postwar relocations: the power of the interventionist state to do good.

For information about her research, visit: https://history.ubc.ca/profile/tina-loo/

Audio played:

"Why basic research matters" with Natalie Davis
"Manitoba's Sayisi Dene: Forced relocation, racism, survival from CBC archives (1978)"
"Northeast Falsecreek plan"
"Why do you love history?" produced by the UBC History Department
"The People Tree" Interview clip with Tina Loo

Rashid Sumaila - On Fisheries and Economics

Posted on Dec 31, 2021

Why are the health of our oceans important for our survival? Why does it matter to find creative ways of protecting them?

Rashid Sumaila is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Ocean and Fisheries Economics at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia. His research focuses on bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, marine protected areas, illegal fishing, climate change, marine plastic pollution, and oil spills.

You can can learn more about his work through The Institute of Oceans and Fisheries on the website https://oceans.ubc.ca

Audio Played:

"Collapse of Newfoundland cod fisheries" End of the Line Documentary
"How can we help less developed economies" Wassily Leontief, 1973 Nobel Prize Winner (Economics) and Creator of the input-output technique
"How More Efficient fishing can protect the ocean" produced by National Geographic

Dominique Weis on Geochemistry

Posted on Dec 24, 2021

How do geochemists study the chemical composition of earth? How do geochemists better our understanding of the earth's interior, natural resources, climate change, human impacts on the environments, and hazards like earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes?

Dominique Weis is a professor in the UBC Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. She is a renowned leader in the application of trace elements and radiogenic isotopes analysis. Her analytical insight has enabled new discoveries into Earth systems such as mantle plumes and hotspot volcanoes. Through the analysis of a wide range of materials such as honey, salmon, or belongings, her expertise allows the opening of new lines of research into health, local pollution/food security, and archeology/Indigenous-led studies. She is a Canada Research Chair in the Geochemistry of the Earth’s mantle

For more information on Dominique Weis's research, visit: https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/people/dominiqueweis
and the Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research at:
https://pcigr.eos.ubc.ca

Audio Played:
"An Isotopic Talk and Tour: The Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research" produced by PCIGR
"Clair Patterson The Clean Room: Inside Look | Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" Produced by National Geographic

Janice Eng on Stroke Recovery

Posted on Dec 10, 2021

What strategies are used to improve physical activity following a stroke? How is stroke research put into practise? What kinds of stroke recovery programs see the best outcomes?

Janice Eng is a professor in the UBC Department of Physical Therapy at the University of British Columbia. She is a world leader in stroke recovery research, from basic neurobiology to novel clinical interventions and treatment programs, and has implemented these programs globally. Professor Eng is the Canada Research Chair in Neurological Rehabilitation, has been recognized for excellence in mentoring early career faculty, and is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

For more information about Janice Eng's research visit:
https://neurorehab.med.ubc.ca/our-people/dr-eng/

Audio played:

"Stroke Recovery Through Exercise featuring UBC Vitality study participant Marco Chorbajian" produced by UBC
"Hero in You" Interview with Rick Hansen, produced by the BC Hall of Fame
"Excerpt from Awakening the Mind: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" produced by the World Science Festival

Janice Eng - On Stroke Recovery

Posted on Dec 03, 2021

Katherine Bowers - On Dostoevsky

Posted on Apr 09, 2021

Who was Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky? Why did he have such an important influence in world literature? How is his work still revered and interpreted today? Why is Russian literature of the 19th century still on many best-seller lists?

Katherine Bowers is an expert in Russian literature and culture. Her research interests include genre, narrative, and imagined geography. Her first monograph, Writing Fear: Russian Realism and the Gothic (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming), examines the way Russian realist writers used narrative models from European gothic fiction in their work. Dr Bowers is the Vice-President of the North American Dostoevsky Society and serves as a Member-at-Large on the Executive Board of the Canadian Association of Slavists.

Dr Bowers’s monograph about the influence of gothic writing on Russian realism is in press. Her new book project is about science fiction, Arctic space, and alternative temporalities.

Dr Bowers is actively involved in Dostoevsky studies. She edits the blog of the North American Dostoevsky Society, The Bloggers Karamazov. In 2021 a new volume she co-edited with Kate Holland will be published: Dostoevsky at 200: The Novel in Modernity. Additionally Drs Holland and Bowers have received a SSHRC Insight Grant (2019-25) Digital Dostoevsky, a digital humanities research project investigating Dostoevsky’s corpus.

Websites:

https://cenes.ubc.ca/profile/katherine-bowers/
http://blogs.ubc.ca/cp150/

Audio Played:

“Crime and Punishment at 150? – interview with Katherine Bowers on University of British Columbia Faculty of Arts Spotlight page, 19 Oct 2016"
"Irvin Weil, a professor emeritus from a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Slavic Languages"
"Anne Hruska, lecture at University of Berkeley"
"Reading from Crime and Punishment, by George Guidall, Audiobook Classics on Youtube"
"Joseph Frank, American literary scholar and leading expert on Dostoevsky from Stanford University archives"

Jerilynn Prior on Perimenopause & Menopause

Posted on Apr 02, 2021

What is Perimenopause? What are later life ovulation disturbances? How can women better understand their menstrual cycles during all phases of their life?

Jerilynn C. Prior is a Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of British Columbia, working on women’s health. She studies menstrual cycles, the effects of ovulation and its later life disturbances. She is the Scientific Director and Founder of the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research. The Centre publishes scientific results and disseminates information directly to women.

She has studied women’s menstrual cycles, perimenopause, menopause and the causes for and treatment of osteoporosis. She has shown that regular cycles (with enough estrogen) commonly do not produce sufficient progesterone (anovulation or short luteal phases). She is widely sought as a speaker for professional and lay audiences and is the author of the award-winning book Estrogen’s Storm Season: Stories of Perimenopause, a fiction book designed to inform and empower perimenopausal women.

More information can be found on the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research can be found at: www.cemcor.ca

Audio played:

"The Puzzle of Perimenopause, Keeping a Daily Diary" produced in 1995 in partnership with UBC Biomedical Communications and CEMCOR.
"Ursula Franklin" produced by Historica Canada’s Heritage Minutes
"The ABCs of Osteoporosis Prevention for Premenopausal Women", produced by CEMCOR

Shari Forbes - On Forensic taphonomy

Posted on Mar 26, 2021

Shari L. Forbes is the Canada 150 Research Chair in Forensic Thanatology at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). She is the Director of the first human taphonomy facility in Canada for Recherche en Sciences Thanatologiques [Expérimentales et Sociales], also referred to as REST[ES]. She is an advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) and has a deep commitment to the implementation of EDI values in academia. She has encouraged young adults to become engaged in science through her roles as an Ambassador for the Sydney Science Festival, the National Youth Science Forum, and Science Rendezvous.

Prof. Forbes’ research investigates the chemical processes that occur in soft tissue decomposition. Her research aims to increase the knowledge base relating to decomposition chemistry to identify an accurate biochemical signature for estimating time since death. She has studied these processes in terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric environments throughout Australia, Canada and the USA. Her current research focuses on identifying an accurate chemical profile of decomposition odour using advanced chemical instrumentation. Her research assists police canine units to enhance their training protocols for cadaver-detection dogs deployed to forensic and mass disaster investigations. Her expertise is regularly requested to assist police with locating and recovering buried or concealed evidence, including human remains, drugs, explosives, weapons, and currency.
[biography taken from Shariforbes.com]

Audio played:
"What happens to your body after you die" by Science Insider
"The Story of Ada Lovelace" produced by the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET)
"Visiting the Brewarrina First Traps" produced by Now-ness.

Bonny Norton - On multilingual literacy and identity

Posted on Mar 12, 2021

Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the turbulent apartheid years, Dr. Bonny Norton learnt at an early age the complex relationship between language, power, and identity. Now a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at UBC,her passion for social justice and the role of language education in social change has fuelled her extensive body of research in North America and Africa. Her research is centrally concerned with the promotion of multilingual literacy for children, youth, and adults, and is informed by her seminal work on identity and language learning, described in her 2010 AERA award as “changing the face of second language research”. Her work has introduced novel conceptions of identity to the field of language education, and has been the subject of journal special issues in the USA (1997, 2003, 2017), Japan (2002), China (2007), and Europe (2016). Her publications have been translated into French, Chinese, Portuguese, and German. Dr. Norton’s construct of investment has had a profound impact on international scholarship, and is the topic of a special issue of the leading journal, Langage et Société (2016). Her theory, based on extensive research, holds that while a language learner may be highly motivated (a psychological construct), the learner may not be invested (a sociological construct) in the language practices of a given classroom or community, which may, for example, be racist, sexist, or homophobic. A highly productive scholar, her publications include 5 books, 4 journal special issues, and 125 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Her current research addresses multilingual literacy for children in African and Canadian communities, and is included in the 2014 special issue she guest edited for the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development on “Multilingual literacy and social change in African communities” and her 2017 co-edited special issue of the Modern Language Journal on “Transdisciplinarity and language teacher identity”.

https://www.storybookscanada.ca/

Audio played:

“Bridging Classroom and Community: Languages and Cultures in Action” offered in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada

UNESCO celebrates International Literacy Day every September 8th. In 2019 its focus was on ‘Literacy and multilingualism’ Embracing linguistic diversity in education and literacy development is central to addressing these literacy challenges and to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Professor Zubeida Desai, Dean of Education, University of the Western Cape, interview from HIGHER EDUCATION TODAY -- Language and Education produced by the University of the District of Columbia and the University of Cape Town

"Multilingual approaches to teaching and learning," at Purnululu Independent Aboriginal Community School in Australia, teaching literacy across all levels of the school, produced by AITSL.

Dolph Schluter

Posted on Feb 26, 2021

Dolph Schluter is an evolutionary biologist who studies adaptive radiation — the evolution of ecological diversity in groups of organisms that are multiplying rapidly. Dolph’s research suggests that ecologically induced adaptation can result in the evolution of new species. He has worked on Darwin’s finches and helped to develop the three-spined stickleback as an experimental model for studies of adaptive radiation.

Dolph and his team investigate the ecological forces that drive the rapid origin of new species and allow them to persist, the genetic basis of species differences, and the wider ecological impacts of adaptive radiation.

His studies of sticklebacks and other species have allowed Dolph to build a model of a process that he terms ecological speciation, in which adaptation to different environments generates new species. He is the author of The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation (2000) and The Analysis of Biological Data (second edition, 2015). [ Biography taken from The Royal Society]. For more information about his research lab in the UBC department of Zoology, visit: https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~schluter/

Leslie Anthony

Posted on Feb 19, 2021

Leslie Anthony is a Whistler-based writer, editor, biologist and occasional filmmaker. A former editor at Powder, Bike and SKIER magazines, he continues his residence on the masthead of numerous ski and outdoor publications globally. At home, Anthony oversees award-winning Mountain Life Annual, pens a weekly column in Pique Newsmagazine, and writes broadly on travel, adventure, science and the environment in magazines like Canadian Geographic. Author of two previously acclaimed titles, Snakebit and White Planet, his latest book is The Aliens Among Us: How invasive species are transforming the planet—and ourselves.