February 7, 2012 Dr. Werner Antweiler, Sauder School of Business: On International Trade
February 14, 2012 Dr. Courtney Booker, Department of History: On Medieval History
February 28, 2012 Dr. Mark Vessey, Principal, Green College: On Green College
March 6, 2012 Dr. Kim Schonert-Reichl, Faculty of Education: On Human Development, Learning and Culture
March 13, 2012 Dr. Rashid Sumaila, Director, UBC Fisheries Centre: On Fisheries and economics
March 20, 2012 Dr. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Roman Studies Cambridge University: Cecil H. and Ida Green Visiting Professor.
March 27, 2012 Dr. Rena Sharon, School of Music: On Collaborative Piano
April 3, 2012 Dr. Rosie Redfield, Department of Microbiology: On bacteria and sex
April 10, 2012 Dr. Julio Montaner, Faculty of Medicine: On Aids research
April 17, 2012 Dr. Dietrich Jung, Green College Visiting scholar, University of Denmark
April 24, 2012 Dr. Jaymie Matthews, Department of Astronomy: On stellar astrophysics
May 1, 2012 Dr. Andre Marziali, UBC Engineering Physics: On Engineering Physics
January 10th – James Tansey, Sauder School of Business
January 17th – Rosie Redfield, Microbiology
January 24th – Erica Frank, MD
January 31st – Werner Antweiler, Sauder School of Business
February 7th – Alejandra Bronfman, History
February 14th – Kim Schnoert-Reichel, Education
February 21st – Andre Marziali, UBC Engineering Physics
February 28th – Mark Vessey, Green College
Dr. Carlos Ventura, from the department of Civil Engineering will discuss his role as the Director of the Earthquake Engineering Research facility at UBC as well as some of the recent seismic trends in structural engineering.
February 1
Dean of Arts and Haitian scholar, Gage Averill will discuss his new role at UBC as well as his recent Grammy nomination for his project, Alan Lomax in Haiti: Recordings for the Library of Congress, 1936-1937.
January 25
Dr. Perry Adebar from the Department of Civil Engineering will discuss structural engineering as a field of study as well as his current research on Concrete Structures and Seismic Design.
Dr. Brandon Konoval from the School of Music will discuss his current research and and cross appointment in both the School of Music and the Arts One Programme.
Dr. Marilyn Chapman will discuss her role as the lead researcher and author of the new guide for full-day kindergarten in the province, as well as her role in directing the Institute for Early Childhood Education and Research in UBC’s Faculty of Education.
October 5th
Dr. Neil Safier from the Department of History discusses his new class on the history of Amazonia as well as his recent trip to Manaus, Brazil.
Dr. Ken Bryant from the UBC Department of Asian Studies will discuss his upcoming class on Bollywood film as well as the histories of the languages of Urdu and Hindi in literature and popular culture.
September 7th
Professor Gu Xiong, UBC Department of Art History and Visual Art discusses his exhibit “Becoming Rivers” at the Museum of Anthropology;how his work focuses on the dynamics of globalization and on identity shifts for individuals and local cultures, addressing how integration and assimilation, histories both collective and personal, and cultural synthesis cut across boundaries.
Dr. Janet Werker, Director of the Infant Studies Centre Speech and Language Processing, UBC Department of Psychology. Dr. Werker discusses her research of infants growing up bilingual and language acquisition in infancy; speech perception, cognitive development and parent-infant communication.
May 4th
Dean Emeritus Marty Hollenberg, former UBC Dean of Medicine discusses some of the accomplishments made by the faculty of Medicine while he was Dean during the years 1990-1996; as well as what he is currently doing outside of academia since his retirement.
Professor Alfred Hermida from the UBC School of Journalism discusses how journalism and forms of media are changing (he is an authority on digital journalism, having been a founding member of BBCnews.com) as well the rise of social media and the role of citizen journalism.
April 20th – Guest Host Andy Torr
Professor Scott Hinch from the UBC Faculty of Forestry discusses his research on salmon migration as well as his role as Director of the UBC undergraduate program in Natural ResourcesConservation; the largest and fastest growing applied environmental science programs on campus and one of a kind in Canada.
April 13th – Easter Monday
April 6th
Professor Emeritus and renowned pianist Robert Silverman, from the UBC School of Music discusses his beginnings; what ultimately motivated him to become a pianist and teach piano at UBC and how he continues to strive to “bring notes on a page to life as vividly as possible”.
Dr. Carl Wieman, Nobel laureate, discusses his beginnings and the research that led him to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001. He also discusses the goals of the Carl Weiman Science Education Initiative at UBC to achieve highly effective, evidence based science education for all post-secondary students by applying the latest advances in pedagogical and organization excellence.
March 23rd
Dr. Michael Hayden, UBC Department of Medical Genetics and Canada’s Health Researcher of the Year, 2008. Dr Hayden discusses his goals to understand how changes in specific genes result in specific diseases, usually in adult life, in particular Huntington disease. He also discusses his Ripples of Hope Foundation that will bring trainees from Africa to Canada to study in four areas of global health.
March 16th
Professor Tara Lee, Department of English discusses her research interest in minority Canadian Literature, specifically Asian Canadian literature and her motivation for and philosophy in teaching it. She also answers the question, what can you do with an English degree besides teach?
March 9th
Dean of Applied Science, Dr. Aboulnasr discusses her recent appointment to the faculty as well as her research in Electrical Engineering in the field of digital signal processing and her role as the principal investigator on an interdisciplinary inter-university project on smart hearing aids with Siemens, Germany.
March 2nd
Cathleen With, MFA graduate from UBC Creative Writing Department discusses the debut of her first novel, Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison.
Professor Benjamin Perrin, from the UBC Faculty of Law; a speech that he delivered to the BC Human Rights Coalition and the United Nations Association in Canada on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights last December 10th, 2008.
February 10
Prof Talk features a panel lecture from last October; experts from the UBC Departments of Economics and Political Science form a panel to discuss factors leading up to the current global financial crisis. The panel was called “Balance and Blowup” – an analysis of the current financial crisis. Panelists Dr. Paul Beaudry and Dr. Michael Devereux from the Department of Economics.
February 17
Part two of “Balance and Blowup” – an analysis of the current financial crisis. Panelists Dr. Angela Redish from the Department of Economics and Dr. Yves Tiberghien from the Department of Political Science.
February 24
Doctoral student Sonja Klinsky from the UBC Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability talks about her thesis titled: Across Years, Lands and Oceans: Justice and Scale in Climate Change Policy Decision Making.
January 6
Professor Keith Maillard, UBC Creative Writing Department
Keith Maillard discusses his current work. He is an internationally acclaimed writer and novelist, specialising in fiction and poetry; and he also Chairs one of North America’s most successful Creative Writing programs.
January 13
Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi, The Institute for Resources, Environment
and Sustainability, UBC
Professor Dowlatadabadi discusses “Why we have been failing to take on more efficient and environmentally friendly technologies; and why adaptation to climate change will be so much more difficult than academics have been postulating”
January 20
Dr. Ira Nadel, The UBC department of English
Ira Nadel discusses his most recent projects and new work: a biography of the American playwright and filmmaker David Mamet, pub. Feb. 2008 and a book co-authored on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled Golden Gate Bridge, History and Design of an Icon, also pub. in 2008. New work: a biography of the American popular writer and author of Exodus, Leon Uris.
January 27
Professor Benjamin Perrin, UBC Faculty of Law
Benjamin Perrin discusses his current research on Human Trafficking in Canada which is the first comprehensive account of Canada’s involvement in human trafficking for sexual exploitation as well as his involvement at the Third World Congress Against Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil Nov 25-28
Professor Alan Matheson, UBC School of Music. Alan Matheson is a Canadian trumpeter, pianist, composer and arranger. Alan currently teaches trumpet and jazz piano at UBC.
December 9th
Doctoral student T. Todd Jones, UBC Department of Zoology. Groundbreaking research of critically endangered leatherback turtles; part two of a two part series on the current crisis of the world’s marine ecosystems.
November 25th
Dr. Daniel Pauly, Director of UBC Fisheries Centre. Management of world’s fisheries; part of a two part series on the current crisis of the world’s marine ecosystems.
November 18th
Dr. Michael Zeitlin, Department of English: William Faulkner, aviation and fascism. Doctoral student Simon Rolston, Department of English: Contemporary American prison writing
November 11th
Dr. Marvin Westwood, Department of Education and Counselling Psychology. Returning veterans; treating post traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Sherrill Grace, Department of English. RSC Symposium, “The Cultures of War and Peace”
November 4th – Debut of Prof Talk
Doctoral student Mehre Gomez Fonseca, Womens Studies. Stephen Harper’s apology to residential school survivors.
In this conversation, I speak with Sonia Del Re, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Canada. Sonia Del Re holds a Master’s degree in Museology and a PhD in Art History. She first interned at the National Gallery of Canada in 2004–05 and officially joined its curatorial team in 2006. Today, she oversees a remarkable collection of more than 27,000 works of art on paper, created around the world between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. Her curatorial work spans Dutch landscapes, the Carracci, Chagall, Pre-Raphaelite drawings, Picasso’s Vollard Suite, Venetian portraiture, early European monsters, and, most recently, Gathered Leaves: Discoveries from the Drawings Vault. In our conversation, we speak about drawings, prints, the life of the vault, curatorial research, and what works on paper can reveal about artists, history, and the intimate life of images.
Professor Philip Stamp is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Pacific Institute of Theoretical Physics, known as PITP, which he returned to Canada to establish in 2002. Mostly raised in New Zealand and educated in the United Kingdom, Professor Stamp began his academic life in philosophy and literature before turning to theoretical physics. He has since worked as a physicist in France, Spain, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, and the United States. His research explores many aspects of quantum mechanics, including macroscopic quantum phenomena, quantum tunnelling, quantum gravity, and quantum cosmology. In this episode, we speak about his recent work with collaborators on superfluid helium and quantum vacuum tunnelling. The research uses an ultra-thin film of superfluid helium to examine the Schwinger effect, a famous prediction in quantum electrodynamics in which, under extreme conditions, the quantum vacuum may produce particle–antiparticle pairs. In Professor Stamp’s work, this idea is approached through vortex and anti-vortex pairs emerging in a quantum liquid. Our conversation turns to the meaning of the quantum vacuum, the difficulty of observing the Schwinger effect directly, the relationship between theory and experiment in physics, and finally, the strange beauty of a universe that is, in Professor Stamp’s words, both magical and real.
The Blue Hour: Sackbuts, Soundscapes, Bells, and Reformation Germany My interview with Professor Alex Fisher is now available as a podcast. In this conversation, I speak with Professor Fisher about bells, early music, soundscapes, weather, ritual, and the religious worlds of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Germany. Alex Fisher is Professor in the UBC School of Music, where he coordinates Early Music. He is both a distinguished musicologist and a performing musician. Trained as a trombonist, he later specialized in the Renaissance sackbut and has performed with leading early music ensembles. He is also a co-founder of Cappella Borealis. As a scholar, Professor Fisher studies the musical, religious, and cultural worlds of early modern Germany, with particular interests in soundscapes, ritual, and the relationship between music and religious identity during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. His work has appeared in leading journals, including the Journal of Musicology, Early Music History, and the Sixteenth Century Journal. His books include Music and Religious Identity in Counter-Reformation Augsburg and Music, Piety, and Propaganda: The Soundscapes of Counter-Reformation Bavaria. We focus especially on two of his more recent publications: his chapter “Bells” in Information: A Historical Companion, published by Princeton University Press in 2021, and his article “Hearing the Trumpets of the Church Militant: Weather Bells and Supernatural Audition in Post-Reformation Germany,” published in the Sixteenth Century Journal in 2022. Together, they invite us to think about bells not simply as musical instruments, but as technologies of communication, symbols of civic and religious life, and, for many centuries, voices believed to reach both human and supernatural listeners.
In this conversation, I speak with Dr. Paul Bartha, Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, about precautionary reasoning and analogical reasoning. Dr. Bartha works in Logic, Decision Theory and Philosophy of Science, and is one of the leading philosophers of analogical reasoning. He is the author of *By Parallel Reasoning: The Construction and Evaluation of Analogical Arguments*, published by Oxford University Press, as well as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry “Analogy and Analogical Reasoning.” Together, these works examine how analogies help us draw conclusions in science, philosophy, and everyday life. More recently, his work has turned to precautionary reasoning, especially decisions involving environmental risk. In his presentation “Modeling Precautionary Decisions,” he examines how we should reason when the possible outcomes may be catastrophic, the probabilities uncertain, and the usual tools of decision-making inadequate.
In this conversation, I speak with Dr. Claudio Vellutini, Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of British Columbia School of Music, about opera in Vienna and the cultural exchanges that shaped one of Europe’s most influential musical centres. Drawing on his recent chapter in *Vienna: A Musical History* and his book *Entangled Histories: Opera and Cultural Exchange between Vienna and the Italian States after Napoleon*, Claudio traces the development of opera in Vienna from the seventeenth century to the present day. We discuss the arrival of Italian opera at the Habsburg court, the role of theatres and institutions in shaping Vienna’s musical identity, and why opera has remained such a powerful cultural force for more than four centuries.
This was one of those conversations that unfolded naturally — not as a formal interview, but as a beautiful and generous talk about a life lived with curiosity, discipline, and a commitment to practice. Dr. Tom DeMarco is a family physician in Whistler, but our conversation moved far beyond medicine. We spoke about rural health, the intimacy of family practice, decades of work in Canadian communities, and the strange privilege of knowing people across the span of their lives — people who, with time, become almost like family. We also spoke about cycling, travel, birds, language, aging, and the philosophy that can emerge from attending to patients, landscapes, the body, and time. What stayed was the wisdom Dr. Demarco offered without ever sounding like he was trying to be wise. This is a conversation about medicine, but also about how to live: how to remain curious, how to keep moving, how to listen carefully, and how a life can become meaningful through ordinary acts of care. Partial transcript available on https://thehourisblue.com/blog/
In this episode of The Blue Hour, Farha Guerrero introduces Gyaahlaang G̱udee, an episode from X̱aad Kast, the podcast of Dr. Jasḵwaan Bedard, featuring her own reflections, research, and teaching on X̱aad Kíl, the Old Massett / Northern Haida language. Dr. Bedard is a Haida language educator and advocate from G̱aw Tlagée, Massett, Haida Gwaii. She is an Assistant Professor in the Indigenous Languages Program in the Department of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University. Her work focuses on Indigenous language revitalization, X̱aad Kíl, immersion, pedagogy, translation, and language learning guided by Haida community, laws, and values. The episode is titled Gyaahlaang G̱udee, with Dr. J. The title means “Radio” in X̱aad Kíl. This episode is drawn mostly from Chapters 3 and 4 of Dr. Bedard’s 2025 dissertation, A Haida Research Framework for Learning X̱aad Kíl.
Ève Poudrier is an Associate Professor in the School of Music at the University of British Columbia. In this episode, we discuss francophone folk songs, oral traditions, and the preservation of French-language musical heritage.
Jaymie Matthews is an astrophysicist and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia. His work focuses on stellar seismology — the study of star vibrations — and he is closely associated with MOST, the Microvariability and Oscillations of STars telescope, Canada’s first space telescope. In this conversation, we discuss how astronomers study the hidden interiors of stars, what tiny changes in starlight can reveal, and how space telescopes such as MOST helped open new ways of observing the universe. We also explore exoplanets, stellar pulsations, the relationship between light and sound in astronomy, and the way small missions can make a large scientific impact. The conversation also touches on Jaymie’s long career at UBC, his work as a public communicator of astronomy, his recognition as an Officer of the Order of Canada, and the larger question of how science, imagination, and wonder meet when we look at the night sky. Recorded live on CiTR 101.9 FM.
Michelle Kunimoto is an astrophysicist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on exoplanets — planets beyond our solar system — using data from missions such as NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. In this conversation, we discuss exoplanet demographics, occurrence rates, the transit method, planetary evolution, false positives, hot Jupiters, super-Earths, rogue planets, and the enormous datasets transforming modern astronomy. We also explore how astronomers infer hidden worlds through tiny changes in starlight, why our own solar system may be unusual, and how future missions such as the Roman Space Telescope and Habitable Worlds Observatory may reshape our understanding of potentially habitable planets. The conversation also touches on Michelle’s path from UBC to MIT and back again, the role of Star Trek and the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in inspiring scientific curiosity, and the philosophical implications of working in one of the youngest and fastest-evolving fields in astronomy. Recorded live on CiTR 101.9 FM.
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.
"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
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
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
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
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.
"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
