2023 Editors
Editor
Lauren Pugsley
PhD Student, Murphy Lab, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Lauren’s research is focused on Burkholderia cenocepacia’s response to altered pH and metal conditions in the cystic fibrosis lung and how this affects its pathogenesis and susceptibility to antibiotics. Before coming to UBC, she completed her MSc in Biochemistry at McGill University. Lauren is looking forward to mentoring undergraduate students through the peer-review process and learning about all the projects the students have been working on.
Email: lpugs@student.ubc.ca
Editor
Shruti Sandilya
PhD student, Steiner Lab, BC Children’s Hospital & Research Institute
Shruti's research is focused on understanding the intestinal epithelial cell dysfunction in cases of chronic inflammation such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease using the colonoid model. Before starting her PhD at UBC, she completed her MSc in Infection Biology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She has been a mentor to Undergraduate students as a part of SUS Mentorship Connect at UBC. She looks forward to connecting with more undergraduate students, learning about their research work, and helping them communicate science.
Email: shruti63@student.ubc.ca
Faculty Sponsors
UJEMI/UJEMI+ Faculty Advisor
Dave Oliver, PhD
Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia
David Oliver is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UBC. Dave delivers innovative course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) in microbiology. His courses are scaffolded on writing activities that guide students through an authentic scientific research project. Students document their data in original research articles which are published in the Undergraduate Journal of Experimental Microbiology and Immunology (UJEMI). Data and ideas presented in UJEMI papers feed research questions in subsequent terms of the course. Communication skills such as peer review and editing, oral and video-based presentations, executive summaries, team meetings, and research proposals are integrated to facilitate professional development. In 2017, Dave received the UBC Killam Teaching Prize.
Email: dcoliver@mail.ubc.ca
UJEMI-Perspectives Faculty Lead
Francois Jean, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia
Dr. François JEAN is a tenured associate professor in the field of molecular virology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Department of Microbiology and Immunology. François has been leading major international research initiatives funded by CIHR and NCE, including a project grant from CIHR on Zika virus and a NCE Canada-India team grant for developing novel diagnostic technology for detecting emerging and re-emerging viruses (http://ic-impacts.com/research/research-projects/dr-francois-jean/). François has won several prestigious scholarly awards including a 5-year new investigator award (2000-05) from CIHR/Health Canada, a Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Early Career UBC Award (2001), the Fisher Scientific Award from the Canadian Society for Microbiologists (2003), and the UBC Faculty of Science Service Award (2010) in recognition of his leadership role in establishing the Facility for Infectious Disease and Epidemic Research (FINDER) at UBC.
UJEMI/UEJMI+ Faculty Lead
Evelyn Sun, PhD
Lecturer, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia
Evelyn Sun completed her PhD thesis on the characterization of surfing motility, a novel form of bacterial motility, in Pseudomonas aeruginosa under in vitro cystic fibrosis mimicking conditions. During her PhD, she became passionate about teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She completed a teaching as research (TAR) project on the effects of a first-year science communication course on students' science literacy funded by the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL). She did her post-doctoral teaching fellowship in the department working with teaching faculty to create a suite of course-based undergraduate experiences (CUREs) in both data science and wet lab research. She currently teaches MICB 211, Foundations in Microbiology, and MICB 475, Data Science Research in Microbiology and Immunology.
Email: evelyn.sun@ubc.ca
Faculty Advisor
Marcia Graves, PhD
Assistant Professor of Teaching, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia
Dr. Marcia Graves is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia. Throughout her doctoral and post-doctoral research she studied mechanisms of cell motility and how specialized epithelia arrange to form complex 3D structures with the focus on how this architectural organization within tissues gets disrupted during solid tumour progression. Currently Marcia teaches science communication to incoming first year Science students, as well as principles in cellular virology, and an inquiry-driven lab course in immunology to third year students in the Microbiology and Immunology Undergraduate program. In her teaching, she focuses on guiding students to build skills in scientific practices such as evidence-based reasoning and scientific writing. She has a special interest in how students engage with and evaluate the primary literature. In 2018, Marcia received the Killam teaching prize in recognition of her achievements in teaching and learning at UBC.
Email: marcia.graves@ubc.ca