The Panels!

COVID & Climate Change

Dr. Siyun Wang is an Associate Professor and the principal investigator of the Wang Lab of Molecular Food Safety (http://foodsafety.landfood.ubc.ca) at UBC, where she teaches and conducts research on ensuring a safer food supply system. Over the past ten years, she has authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. Siyun received her BSc in Pharmacy from Fudan University in 2005 and PhD in Biology from Illinois Institute of Technology in 2010. Prior to joining UBC in Jan 2013, she was a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University. 

Awards she received included Notable Distinctions at UBC, the Food Safety Award from BC Food Protection Association, the Young Researcher Initiative from the European Food Safety Authority, and the scholarship for young women scientists underrepresented in STEM from the US National Science Foundation. Siyun currently serves as an Associate Editor of Current Research in Food Science and an editorial board member of Journal of Food Protection and Food Microbiology. 

At UBC, Siyun serves as the graduate advisor of the Food Science Program as well as sits on the UBC COVID-19 expert panel.

Grad Student Panel

 Rapichan is a PhD student at IRES and a Vanier Scholar. Her interdisciplinary research is rooted in community-based fieldwork and it draws on political ecology, cultural geography, development studies, decolonial thinking, and Science and Technology Studies (STS) to critically examine the relationalities of  river flows and to re-operationalize environmental flows for biocultural diversity conservation.

Neha is a PhD student and researcher at IRES, UBC. She is also working as a Sustainability Scholar with a Vancouver based social enterprise to develop a pathway for transition to a circular economy through collaboration between government, communities, and enterprises. Neha has worked for over 10 years in economic and public policy research and data analytics with international research organizations and corporations in India.

I am a PhD candidate in aqueous geochemistry – my specialty is developing methods and using different kinds of mass spectrometry to measure trace amounts of metals and their isotopes dissolved in seawater. I also spend time teaching and developing an introductory earth sciences lab in EOAS. I am a PhD candidate in aqueous geochemistry – my specialty is developing methods and using different kinds of mass spectrometry to measure trace amounts of metals and their isotopes dissolved in seawater. I also spend time teaching and developing an introductory earth sciences lab in EOAS.

Keynote Speaker Information

Kai Chan is a sustainability scientist whose work straddles social and natural systems with a focus on values and transformative change. He is a professor at the University of British Columbia, a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists (2017), a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPBES Global Assessment, a Lead Editor for the new journal People and Nature, a member of Canada’s Clean16 for 2020, and co-founder of CoSphere (a Community of Small-Planet Heroes).

Mental Health & Climate Change

Jenalee Kluttz is an educator-activist, community organizer, and PhD Candidate in the Department of Educational Studies. She researches environmental and climate justice, learning within social movements related to the climate and ecological crisis, and education for sustainability more broadly. She will be sharing recent research on the impacts of the climate crisis on mental health and wellbeing, specifically within the context of post-secondary education. Her research explores the ways institutions and university communities have begun to address issues like climate anxiety and grief, and what more might be done to promote mental health and wellbeing in order to build resilient communities and support continued climate action.

Seeds

More information to come!