Research Partnerships

Highlights

Our biology department provided classroom outreach visits to over 400 elementary school students, focusing on marine animals.

Volunteerism Highlights

  • Dr. Laura Hooker served as president of the Central Okanagan Land Trust, which manages around 1,000 acres of property for conservation purposes, as well as a substantial fund for acquiring conservation properties.
  • Dr. Lael Parrott served on the Board of Directors of the Alpine Club of Canada— a member of the International Union of Mountaineering Associations
  • Blythe Nilson served as a board member of the Center for Inquiry, Kelowna.

Featured Partnership

Watershed Management Research Extension Program: Connecting Research and the Community

UBC Okanagan’s Watershed Management Research program was established in 2001 and is headed by internationally recognized scholars and researchers Adam Wei and David Scott—Endowed Research Chairs in Watershed Management. The program has resulted in important discoveries and strong partnerships, which we want to continue to build on. With that in mind, last year a new position was added to the project — Extension Facilitator.

The goal of the new facilitator is to support the researchers, but also to help the program reach further, fostering connections between science and industry, engaging with the community, and enriching student learning. It is an important investment in the Watershed Management Research Program and the community.

Adam Wei

Adam Wei
Professor | Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences

Smart Forests: Building Community and Ecological Fire Resilience

UBC and Rogers renewed their 5G Research Partnership in 2021 to pursue research and develop new applications of 5G technologies that address social and economic challenges. Among researchers participating in the the renewed partnership, Dr. Mathieu Bourbonnais (principal investigator) and Dr. Lael Parrott (co-principal investigator) in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science lead the “Wildfire prevention and smart forests: Building community and ecological fire resilience using real-time monitoring of forest conditions through 5G and next-generation fuels” project.

The partnership, according to Dr. Bourbonnais “will assist in fire and landscape management, fire ecology, and climate sciences and we will develop and test the application leveraging existing collaborations in the Okanagan.”

Mathieu Bourbonnais

Mathieu Bourbonnais
Assistant Professor | Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences