VPRI Leadership

Role:

• Vice-Principal and Associate Vice-President, Research and Innovation

Research Focus: 

Comparative animal physiology, focused on understanding how fish will cope with ongoing climate warming.

Profile:

Dr. Suzie Currie is the Vice Principal and Associate Vice-President, Research and Innovation. In her role, she leads the strategic direction of UBC Okanagan’s research enterprise and provides oversight to advance research, scholarly activity and innovation. An integral member of both the senior leadership team for the Okanagan campus and the senior team in UBC’s Vice-President Research office in Vancouver, she plays a critical leadership role in advancing the goals set out in UBCO’s long-term vision, Outlook 2040.

Dr. Currie’s previous administrative experience includes serving as Department Head at Mount Allison University, as well as Dean of Pure and Applied Science and interim Associate Vice-President Research, Innovation and Graduate Studies at Acadia University.

She is passionate about research, innovation and creative activity. As an active NSERC-funded researcher, she is currently studying how social environments influence the way fish respond to elevated temperatures.

Dr. Currie holds an MSc and PhD in Biology from Queen’s University and completed NSERC and Leverhulme-funded Postdoctoral Fellowships at the University of Cambridge, where she also served as the Charles and Katherine Darwin Research Fellow at Darwin College.

Roles:

• Associate Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation
• Associate Professor, English, English and Cultural Studies

Research Focus:

Modern and contemporary Canadian and American poetry; literary audio; literary archives; media studies; feminist theory; sound studies; oral history; digital humanities; editing and publishing; history of higher education, particularly the development of Creative Writing as an academic discipline in Canadian universities.

Profile:

Dr. Karis Shearer (she/elle) is a white, queer settler-scholar of Scottish and Finnish heritage, raised in both Geraldton, ON (James Bay Treaty 9 Territory) and Pembroke, ON (Treaty 27 Territory) and is a first-generation university graduate. She holds BA from McGill University, an MA and PhD from Western University, and returned to McGill University for a postdoctoral fellowship before taking up a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at Vanderbilt University. With expertise in Canadian poetry, critical infrastructure studies, and data justice, Dr. Shearer is the principal investigator of the AMP Lab, a CFI-funded digital humanities lab dedicated to exploring critical issues in digitized cultural heritage, and lead UBCO researcher for the SpokenWeb SSHRC Partnership Grant.

In her role as Associate Vice-Principal (AVP), Dr. Shearer works with academic leaders and others to facilitate collaboration and integration in research and innovation; facilitates overall effectiveness and efficiency of the VPRI portfolio and collaborates with colleagues on both UBC campuses to achieve these goals; is responsible for several shared research facilities and Senate-approved research institutes and enables strategic initiatives that deliver on campus goals and commitments of UBC’s Next Century; collaborates and engages with partners on both campuses, with government and industry, and other post-secondary institutions across the province and across the country. Among her responsibilities are providing leadership and strategic direction for x̌əl sic snpax̌nwixʷtn, championing Indigenous research support, the promotion of EDI in research, and developing strategic protocols for international research partnerships.

Roles:

• Special Advisor to the Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation
• Professor, Department of Biology
• Director, Plant Growth Facility
• Co-Director, Wine Research Centre

Research Focus:

Microbial ecology of soil microbes; the role and the applications of microbes in sustainable agriculture, viticulture, and ecological restoration; soil biology; biological diversity.

Profile:

In her role as special advisor, Dr. Miranda Hart is responsible for consolidating plant research, education and outreach activities into a unified framework. She also works to increase interdisciplinary, large-scale research initiatives and handles strategic management of campus lands.

Dr. Hart is a Professor in the Department of Biology in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, the Director of Plant and Botanical Research, and Interim Co-Director of the Wine Research Centre. As a microbial ecologist with a background in soils, agriculture, forestry and conservation, her research is focused on the role of soil biodiversity conservation in creating sustainable ecosystems.

She chairs the Agricultural and Botanical Lands Subcommittee and collaborates with the Okanagan Nation Alliance and other Indigenous groups to restore native plant communities. Through public engagement programs, she fosters community collaboration and supports Indigenous-led planting initiatives on the UBC Okanagan campus.

Dr. Hart is a former Killam Research Fellowship recipient. She holds a PhD from the University of Guelph.

Roles:

• Special Advisor to the Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation
• Professor, School of Health and Exercise Sciences

Research Focus:

Comparative and experimental cardiovascular physiology; acute and chronic effects of physical (in)activity and/or environmental stress upon the heart; human evolution and cardiovascular mismatch disease.

Profile:

As Special Advisor to the Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation, Dr. Rob Shave provides support across a range of initiatives and is working with the Provost’s Office and across faculties to develop a series of internal and external consultations to inform the development of the UBC Okanagan Health Research framework.

He is a Professor in the School of Health and Exercise Sciences, former Associate Dean, Research in the Faculty of Health and Social Development and Director of the School of Health and Exercise Sciences. He is also a cardiovascular physiologist with an interest in cardiac adaptation and remodeling in both health and disease.

Dr. Shave leads the International Primate Heart Project, which investigates heart disease in great apes, and offers insights into the evolution of the human heart, and the potential for cardiovascular mis-match disease. His work is interdisciplinary in nature, involving international collaborations with colleagues in exercise physiology, medicine, veterinary science and evolutionary biology.

He received both his BSc (Sports Sciences) and PhD (Cardiac Physiology) from the University of Wolverhampton, UK, and an MSc in Human Performance from Frostburg State University, USA.

Prior to embarking on his academic career, Dr. Shave worked as an applied sport scientist with the British Olympic Medical Centre.