Academics are well-prepared to support students navigating an academic career. We tend to be less prepared to help students articulate their skills to careers and life outside academia. Often, graduate students feel overqualified for jobs or are so focused on their research that they are only looking for jobs and careers in that content area, unaware that the vast skills they develop in graduate school are highly sought after in the government, non-profit, and private sectors.
This talk will provide:
ways of seeing the personal and professional strengths and skills that you have,
some tangible and effective job-search strategies, and
help you focus on what you can do
The goal is to empower you to understand who you are and what you can do, regardless of where you are in your grad school journey.
Dr. Leslie McLees, Undergraduate Program Director & Senior Instructor, Department of Geography, University of Oregon
Bio:
Leslie McLees is a Senior Instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon. She co-developed and co-teaches the UO’s first college-wide course that links liberal arts to career readiness. She has held workshops for undergraduates and graduate students to empower them to reflect on and realize the skills and strengths they develop throughout their university careers. After all, if we tell students they need a certain degree to be successful in their professional and personal lives, we should be able to show them how that degree contributes to that success.
In this presentation, I will talk about my role as co-chair of Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body, which is mandated to provide the federal Minister of the Environment and Climate Change with independent advice with respect to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Dr. Simon Donner, IRES Professor, Climate Scientist
Bio:
Simon Donner is a climate scientist focused on helping the world prevent and prepare for climate change. His research program lies primarily at the intersection of climate change science, marine science, and policy. The specific research areas evolve over time in response to advances in climate change knowledge and to real-world events. Prospective students and post-doctoral researchers should check his web site for current and planned areas of work, as well as for guidance for applicants.
Donner takes his privileged position as a professor seriously, and spends a lot of his time translating the science of climate change to different audiences in hopes of helping people make better decisions about the future. He was a lead author on the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment and serves as an appointed member of Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body, which advises the federal government on achieving net-zero emissions.
1. Aquatic ecosystem metabolism and carbon biogeochemistry as indicators of stream health in the Deadman River watershed near Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada
2. Reawakening Traditional Ecological Practices to Revitalize Satoyama Stewardship in Japan: finding adaptive capacity of Japanese village ecology, culture and spirituality
Time: 12:30pm to 1:20pm
Location: Beaty Museum Allan Yap Theatre(Basement, 2212 Main Mall). Please check in at front desk on main floor before going downstairs.
Absolutely no food and no drinks allowed in the Beaty Museum.
Aquatic ecosystem metabolism is the balance of organic carbon produced and consumed within an aquatic ecosystem and forms the basis for food webs and biogeochemical cycles in streams. By integrating biochemical and physical components, metabolism represents an ecosystem-level indicator of stream health in relation to stressors such as land-use change, wildfire, or climate change. This research explores how aquatic ecosystem metabolism and carbon biogeochemistry reflect stream health in the Deadman River watershed near Kamloops, British Columbia. This research is part of the Tsecmenúl̓ecwem-kt (We Repair the Land) project, lead by the Skeetchestn Indian Band, which aims to evaluate watershed health and recovery as well as the effectiveness of restoration treatments in the Deadman River watershed following a severe wildfire.
Caleb Sinn, IRES Msc Student
Bio:
Caleb is an MSc student in the UBC Ecohydrology Lab, supervised by Dr. Mark Johnson. His research interest is the use of ecosystem ecology to support stewardship and management of freshwater at the watershed scale. Prior to coming to UBC, Caleb completed a BSc in General Science with a double-major in Biology and Chemistry at the University of Alberta, and then worked as a Program Manager with the Alberta Lake Management Society where he managed year-round and province-wide community-based lake monitoring programs. In his free time you’ll find Caleb cooking, gardening, trail running, or spending time with family and friends.
Talk summary:
Traditional ecological practices in Japan have shifted drastically due to rapid modernization and urbanization over the last century. Some practices survived; others fell asleep. While onset societal change has made village life isolated, Yoshi’s relatives in the village have worked daily to maintain the culture by adapting to changes throughout their lifetime. Inspired by these people’s wisdom and efforts, he studies the fluid ways of village life by listening to them and experiencing the daily life with them. His autoethnographic approach reveals elements of his ancestors’ traditional ways, and how linearity of time can be unraveled by witnessing the adaptability of his relatives, to this day thriving in their element where ecology, culture and spirituality are kept woven tight. He believes that documenting this continuum will aid the bridge for the future generations, extending beyond his village.
Yoshi Tanaka, IRES Msc Student
Bio:
Despite being raised in urban Nagoya City, Yoshinori has privileged connection with his maternal ancestral village. Spending ample time of his youth in the village, his deep connection with the people, mountain, creeks and creatures has shaped his worldview and developed deep awareness towards his environment, an advantage for his scholarly endeavor. Curiosity strongly drives him in weaving commonalities among differences across circularity of time and space, in the entanglement of humans as a part of nature. A citizen of Japan, a permanent resident of Canada, a descendant of Pacific Rim cultural zone.
Biodiversity and agricultural ecosystem services generally benefit from landscape and local scale habitat complexity, but trade-offs and synergies among different ecosystem services such as pollination, pest control, crop quality/yield, and soil health are crucial for land managers. Relationships between ecosystem function and habitat complexity can also be complicated by interactions between complexity at different scales. In California’s Salinas Valley region, the source of nearly half of the United States’ strawberries, previous work has shown that pest control by birds and arthropods, as well as abundance and diversity of these service providers, benefit from multi-scalar habitat diversity. The current project aims to reveal how habitat complexity at different scales may be managed to sustain biodiversity and facilitate a suite of ecosystem services according to stakeholder priorities.
Dr. Adrian Lu, IRES Postdoc
Bio:
Adrian is a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Claire Kremen to explore the synergies and trade-offs between multiple ecosystem services along multi-scalar habitat complexity gradients in California’s Central Coast strawberry growing region. At IRES, Adrian seeks to cultivate a deeper understanding of the relationships among traditional resource management, biocultural diversity, and human well-being. Trained as an ecologist and attorney, Adrian’s perennial challenge is to transform scientific findings into advocacy for the interests of marginalized communities.
ASIC 220 – 001: Introduction to Sustainability (3 credits)
TA position: 192 hrs
Course Description & Learning Objectives
This is an introductory course to provide a comprehensive introduction to sustainability from a science, economics, and societal perspective. The coverage of topics will be broad and encompass a number of disciplines including environmental science, economics, policy and behavioural sciences. Students are not expected to have a background in any of these disciplines.
The course will explore questions related to the sustainability for which people may have strong opinions. These include:
How and why do humans misuse and abuse the environment?
What has a greater impact on the planet’s health: population or consumption?
Are economic development and environmental protection incompatible?
Can technological fixes solve environmental problems?
How do you know if a product or action is ‘green’?
Is economics the key? Can ‘getting the price’ solve environmental problems?
Are there limits to growth? Can we leave the world better off for future generations?
How might we live sustainably and equitably on the planet?
The goal of this course is not to provide students with definitive answers to these questions. This course is designed to help students learn concepts, tools, methodologies, and strategies so that they can make positive and meaningful contributions to solutions to problems related to sustainability.
Please attach a current CV and return your application and attachments to: kelsey.robertson@ubc.ca
Application deadline: 9:00 am on Thursday, December 12, 2024
