Organizers & Contributors - UBC Physics & Astronomy Launchpad

Jeremy Heyl

Professor and Graduate Admission Chair, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Janis McKenna

Professor and Undergraduate 2nd Year Physics Advisor, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Sarah Burke

Associate Professor, UBC Physics & Astronomy; Researcher, Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute

Adele Ruosi

Science Education Specialist, UBC Physics & Astronomy and UBC Skylight

Mai Yasue

Interim Director Education, UBC Partnership and Engagement, Equity and Inclusion Office

Ania Kwiatkowski

Research Scientist, UBC TRIUMF

Alannah Hallas

Assistant Professor, UBC Physics Astronomy; Researcher, Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute

Alex Anees

Research Operations Facilitator at UBC Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute

Jess McIver

Assistant Professor, UBC Physics & Astronomy; Researcher, UBC LIGO Group

Derek Gagnier

Human Resources Manager, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Theresa Liao

Communications Coordinator, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Demet Kirmizibayrak

Graduate Student, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Ryley Hill

Graduate Student, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Leesa Fleury

Graduate Student, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Allison Man

Assistant Professor, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Linda Strubbe

Educational Consultant, Strubbe Educational Consulting; Co-Director, Pan-African School for Emerging Astronomers

Linda Strubbe, Ph.D., is a science education consultant, researcher, instructor, curriculum designer and instructor professional developer.

Her Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley) and first postdoctoral fellowship (Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics) were studying massive black holes in the centers of galaxies. In 2015, she transitioned her career to science education. Linda’s work focuses on university instructor professional development in international contexts, especially Canada, West Africa, Central Asia, and the U.S.

She is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Pan-African School for Emerging Astronomers, and is currently supporting physics departments across four continents who are working to advance equity and inclusion in their universities.

Alison Lister

Associate Professor, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Lilian Bandeira

International Student Advisor, UBC International Student Development

Emma Davy

Science Education Specialist, UBC Chemistry

Marisa Ortiz

UBC Equity & Inclusion Office

Olaitan Ogunnote

Graduate Student, Vancouver School of Economics (VSE); Black Graduate Student Network (BGSN) Executive

Francis Kpatakpa

Francis Kpatakpa, Graduate Student, UBC Forestry; Black Graduate Student Network (BGSN) Executive

Kaho Saito

HR and Executive Assistant to the Head, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Marcello Pavan

PHAS lecturer, UBC Physics & Astronomy; Undergraduate Student Program Director, TRIUMF

Denis González-Caniulef

Postdoctoral Fellow, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Kirsty Dickson

Interim Communications Coordinator, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Shadi Balandeh

Shadi is a manager at TELUS, managing a team of data scientists. Her team is focused on natural language processing models and works closely with the Google engineering team as one of their major partners.

Shadi came to Canada in 2012 to pursue her master’s in Physics at UBC. She finished her Ph.D. in condensed matter physics under the supervision of Prof. George Sawatzky in 2018. She then joined TELUS as a business analyst and became a data scientist a year later.

Her curious mind and love for learning and connecting dots led her to a role to build and lead a team of data scientists focused on text mining for call center data.

She has a son and the most chill cat in the world. She loves nature and spending quality time with herself, her friends, and her family.

Tomasz Andrzejewski

Graduate student, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Raelyn Sullivan

Graduate student, UBC Physics & Astronomy

Catia Baron

Catia is an Experimental Physicist on the D-Wave processor development team, as well as the Lead for our Research Technician team. In these dual roles, she both conducts experiments on novel superconducting devices which may be incorporated in quantum processing chips in the future, and manages the fantastic team that’s responsible for doing most of the hands-on lab work required to keep all of our complex parallel testing and production systems running smoothly (and troubleshooting them when they’re not!). She’s generally responsible for overseeing day-to-day and medium-term activities in the lab. Catia holds a Bachelor’s in Engineering Physics from Mexico and a Master’s degree in Micro and Nanotechnology from the University of Cambridge.