2011 winners of the Distinguished Academics Awards

UBC’s Prof. Benjamin Perrin received the 2011 Early in Career Award Sponsored by Scotiabank for his work in documenting the prevalence and severity of human trafficking in Canada, and using that work to raise our awareness and change our laws.

The success of his work is measured by the creation of new Criminal Code provisions in June 2010 to provide stricter penalties for those found guilty of human trafficking, and by Craigslist discontinuing its advertisements for erotic services in Canada in December 2010. All of this was accomplished within four years of becoming a university professor.

For his research into the dark corners of Canadian society, and for his untiring pursuit of justice, Professor Benjamin Perrin is the 2011 recipient of the Early in Career Award

UBC’s Dr. Jim Anderson received the 2011 Academic of the Year Award for his work in creating the Parents as Literacy Supporters (PALS) and Literacy for Life programs to help immigrant, Aboriginal and low-income parents to better support their children in improving their literacy.

Dr. Anderson started his professional life as a teacher and a school administrator. Since becoming an academic in 1987, Dr. Anderson’s research has focused on early literacy and the role played by family in fostering literacy. It was this line of research that led Dr. Anderson to develop two innovative programs.

In 2000, Dr. Anderson and his program partner Fiona Morrison from the Langley School Board, developed Parents as Literacy Supporters (PALS). PALS is built around the idea that traditional early literacy programs are built on white, middle class conceptions of reading and writing. This is manifested in such things as the availability of reading materials in the home, choice of reading materials and parental support for learning. Children from families that didn’t fit this profile were thus disadvantaged.

PALS works with parents in order to understand their social and cultural context, and uses this knowledge to help the parents improve literacy learning in the home. It also equips parents to deal effectively with teachers and school administrators.

From the pilot project in 2000, PALS has expanded to 25 school districts in British Columbia and is being used by other educators in Ontario, Northwest Territories, Switzerland and Uganda.

Dr. Anderson also worked with UBC colleague Victoria Purcell Gates to create the Literacy for Life program. This program uses real-world activities and real-world texts – such as reading a recipe to make a birthday cake – to improve the literacy of both parents and their children.

For the creation of the PALS and Literacy for Life programs, Dr. Jim Anderson is awarded the 2011 Academic of the Year Award.

UBC’s Dr. Rabab Ward received the 2011 Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award for her pioneering research in signal processing, which has resulted in improved picture quality for cable television, a sophisticated brain computer interface to allow people with mobility impairments to control various devices, and an improved method of processing mammograms that results in 70% of cancers being identified a year earlier than was previously possible.

At first glance, it’s not obvious how Dr.Ward’s work on signal processing won her this award. The innovative and complex mathematics that enables the enhancement and transformation of electrical signals appears pretty far removed from the daily life of British Columbians.

Thirty years ago, this might have been the case, but today we are constantly using electronic signals in the form of computers, cell phones, television, the internet, DVDs, medical imaging, cash machines, surveillance cameras, and traffic lights, to name but a few examples. How those signals are reliably transmitted and subsequently used is the realm of signal processing.

In particular, Dr. Ward’s research has resulted in:

a means to remotely monitor the quality of cable television signals;
improvements in the processing of mammograms that permit detection of 70% of cancers a year earlier than was previously possible;
a video system that measures the size, mass and speed of fish without harming them;
a device to detect the level of stress in a baby’s cry for the purposes of waking deaf parents;
and a high-performance brain computer interface.
Dr. Ward has no shortage of ideas to drive her research, but she finds that it is her students who often come up with some of the more interesting ideas, sending her off in directions she might not have explored on her own.

It is a testament to her ability to teach and mentor that her students have gone on to distinguish themselves as professors, researchers and engineers.

For her pioneering work in signal processing, for her application and extension of theory to solve a myriad of real world problems, and for her technical and educational leadership, Dr. Rabab Ward is the 2011 recipient of the Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award.