Challenges, changes, and research: Insights from UBC’s University Killam Professors

As Vice-President, Research & Innovation at UBC, Dr. Gail Murphy has advanced the university’s research and innovation agendas since her appointment in 2017. She is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and a former Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) in the Faculty of Science. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and co-founder of Tasktop Technologies Incorporated. She completed her Bachelor of Science at the University of Alberta (1987), and her Master of Science (1994) and PhD (1996) in computer science at the University of Washington.

Professor Isabel Grant specializes in criminal law with a particular focus on violence against women and people with disabilities. Her expertise spans various subject areas including homicide, sexual assault, HIV nondisclosure prosecutions, and medical assistance in dying. Her scholarship has been followed in numerous judicial decisions and helped shape legislative law reform. She has volunteered with advocacy groups representing women and people with disabilities on more than 20 interventions in the Supreme Court of Canada and other appellate courts. She has received a Killam Teaching Prize and the Georges A. Goyer, QC Memorial Award for Distinguished Service from the Canada Bar Association (BC Branch), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Professor Marco Marra has demonstrated the pivotal role that genomics can play in human health and disease research. He has done so by contributing to the Human Genome Project, leading the sequencing of the SARS coronavirus genome, and publishing the first proof-of-concept study using whole-genome analyses in personalized cancer medicine. His research has uncovered new cancer mutations, candidate biomarkers, and therapeutic targets, and has helped demonstrate the interplay between the cancer genome and epigenome. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of British Columbia, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a laureate of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Professor Jamie Peck is a geographical political economist with research interests in urban and regional restructuring, capitalist transformations, the politics of policy formation, and economic geography. His work is concerned with the ways in which ostensibly global processes—such as traveling ideas, ideological projects, and new governance regimes—are made and remade through localized sites, extended networks, and grounded practices. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and the recipient of the Vautrin Lud Prize, he is the founder of the Summer Institute in Economic Geography.

Since 1965, the Killam Trusts have awarded scholarships, fellowships, prizes, and other funding to more than 8,000 Killam Laureates around the world. In Canada, the Killam name is synonymous with financial support for advanced studies. The Killam Trusts, established by Dorothy Johnston Killam and Izaak Walton Killam, benefit the University of British Columbia, the Canada Council for the Arts, Dalhousie University, The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital), University of Alberta, and the University of Calgary. More than 2,000 UBC professors, fellows, students, and scholars have received Killam support for their research and scholarship. Every Killam scholar makes a unique contribution, creating and disseminating knowledge that has global impact.