Keith Adams
Research Interests My research interests intersect among genomics, molecular evolution, and molecular genetics. My lab’s research is in the areas of genome evolution, molecular evolution, and gene expression – transcriptomics. We study how gene expression patterns, regulation, alternative splicing, and functions evolve. We focus on genes duplicated by whole genome duplication (polyploidy) and other duplication mechanisms at different evolutionary time scales. We use molecular techniques and bioinformatics analyses of large sequence and expression data sets (RNA-seq – Illumina and PacBio) to test hypotheses and answer questions. Some of the major questions that we study include: – How do duplicated genes change in expression […]
Coralie Salesse-Smith
Research interests One aspect of ensuring future food security is the ability to produce more crop products using fewer resources – such as land, water, and fertilizer – in the face of climate change. In the Salesse-Smith lab, we are helping to address this challenge by using synthetic biology to study the molecular mechanisms of carbon metabolism and photosynthesis, with the goal of engineering crops with improved productivity and resilience. Our main target is the enzyme Rubisco, which is responsible for nearly all biological carbon fixation, but we are also interested in other components of leaf carbon assimilation. Our research combines plant […]
Jennifer Klenz
Teaching Interests Courses Taught/Teaching Community Work Growing Chefs, a local initiative to teach children about growing, cooking and eating plants Jennifer wearing plants used in cooking during lesson AND student’s aesthetic salad plate Selected Publications Klenz JE. 2024. Characterizing an Organism Through a Highly Adaptable Lab Jigsaw Activity. Article 30 In: Boone E andThuecks S, eds. Advances in Biology Laboratory Education. Volume 44. Publication of the 44th Conference of the Association forBiology Laboratory Education (ABLE). DOI: https://www.ableweb.org/biologylabs/wp-content/uploads/volumes/vol-44/30_Klenz.pdf Klenz, J. 2021. A Picture is Worth 1000 Words: Using Pictorial Expression Data in Bioinformatics Assignments. Advances in Biology Laboratory Education Publication of […]
Courtney G. Collins
I am a Climate Change Research Ecologist in the Future Forests Ecosystem Centre (FFEC) at the BC Ministry of Forests and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Botany at UBC. Research Interest My research takes a data-driven approach to understand the complex and interacting effects of global change on terrestrial biodiversity including species range dynamics, biotic interactions, phenology and plant-soil feedbacks. I combine different methods including field and greenhouse experiments, drone surveys, environmental senor networks and more. I synthesize ecological and environmental data across these multiple sources, as well as from publicly available global climate and trait databases, long-term experimental monitoring networks, environmental DNA sequencing data […]
Jacob Moutouama
Research Interests We are interested in investigating the abiotic and biotic drivers of species’ distributions, with a focus on how global change influences species range limits and extinction risk. We are also interested in understanding the mechanisms underlying plants use by indigenous communities in tropical regions. Our research combines demographic data, manipulative lab and field experiments, and mathematical models to address pressing conservation and management challenges in a rapidly changing world. Selected Publications
Arif Ashraf
Assistant Professor • Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia, Canada (2025~)• Assistant Professor, Howard University, USA (2023-2024)• Postdoc, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA (2019-2023)• Visiting scholar, The University of Tokyo, Japan (2017-2019)• Summer Intern, University of Saskatchewan, Canada (2016)• Ph.D., Plant Biology, Iwate University, Japan Email: arif.ashraf@botany.ubc.ca Office: Biological Sciences- South Wing- Room 2325Website: https://www.ashraflab.com/Publications: Google scholar, ResearchGateTwitter/X: https://x.com/aribidopsis BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/aribidopsis.bsky.social Research interests We study cell division to understand plant development, environmental response, and drug discovery. Selected publications:
Monika Fischer
Research Interests Monika is a mycologist who is passionate about understanding the biological mechanisms that drive ecological processes. Our lab seeks to understand what it means to be a fire-adapted fungus, and the role(s) that these fungi play during post-fire recovery. Fire-loving fungi are highly active within days following fire, including the model organism, Neurospora crassa. To build a holistic framework of the fungal role in post-fire recovery – we work across scales, using a breadth of techniques including classical genetics, cell biology, genomics, directed laboratory experiments with synthetic communities, and field surveys. Selected Publications MS Fischer, NJ Patel, PJ de […]
Hélène Sanfaçon
Research Interests My research program is aimed at providing a molecular understanding of the replication cycle of plant viruses, with the long-term objective of designing new antiviral strategies. In particular, we are studying the function of viral proteins and the interaction between viruses and their host plants. Tomato ringspot virus (ToRSV) is a nepovirus and an important pathogen of fruit trees and small fruits in North America. Our laboratory is dissecting various steps of the replication cycle. In recent years, we have (1) examined the function and cleavage site specificity of the viral proteinase; (2) studied the assembly of viral replication complexes […]
Andrew Riseman
Research Interests My research interests include understanding the role of plant genetics in the design of sustainable production systems, identifying relevant traits useful in these systems, combining them within superior germplasm, and integrating this germplasm into an optimized system. General areas of interest include plant breeding, intercrop interactions, nutrient use efficiency, root physiology, biotic and abiotic stressor resistance, and edaphic selection. Currently, I am focusing on understanding and designing intensive multi-trophic production systems and the re-integration of plant and animal production.
Sandra Lindstrom
Research Interests One of the world’s most complex coasts extends from Puget Sound, Washington, through British Columbia and around the coast of Alaska. Repeated glaciation has acted like a species pump, creating a more diverse marine benthic seaweed flora than one would expect in a region so recently covered by ice. Although this area has been studied by phycologists at U.B.C. since the 1950s, only recently have we had the molecular tools to address unequivocally questions of species limits and relationships and the biogeography of speciation in this environment. These tools have allowed us to recognize species that had previously been […]
K. Patel
Professor Emeritus
Gilbert C. Hughes
28th February 1933 – 10th October 2010In memoriam by Iain Taylor Gil. Hughes was born in Homerville GA, and earned an undergraduate degree in Biology from Georgia Southern University 1953. Biology was the major but music was never far behind for Gil was an accomplished pianist and had a lifelong love of the works of Rachmaninoff and became recognized as one of that composer’s expert discographers. He was widely known as one of the world’s experts of the discography. He fell in love with fungi and obtained graduate degrees in Botany from Florida State University (M.S. 1957; Ph.D. 1959). After one year as an […]
Fred Sack
Fred David Sack (1947-2015) Fred David Sack was born on May 22, 1947 in New York City, the only child of Irving and Matilda (Trudy) Sack. Like many of his peers born in the wake of World War II, Fred was raised within the influence of the liberal Jewish tradition and the progressive tenets of the Ethical Culture Society. He attended Stuyvesant High School, graduating in 1969, and Antioch College where he majored in Sociology and was active in school and antiwar politics. He loved music of all types, folk dancing, playing the guitar, and traveling. When he graduated from Antioch […]
Thana Bisalputra
Thana Bisalputra passed away peacefully on June 13, 2009 in Surrey, British Columbia. He is survived by his brother, Thanit; his sister, Rasana; his sons Danai (and wife Angela) and Rabin; grandson, Jonathan; ex-wife, Alice-Ann; and several nieces and nephews in Thailand. Dr. Bisalputra was born January 6, 1930 in Thonburi, Thailand, the youngest of seven children. He attended University of New England in Armidale, Australia, earning a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in 1958 and a Master’s degree in biology in 1960. He then moved to the University of California, Davis to work with Professor Katherine Esau. When she movedto Santa Barbara, […]
Vladimir Krajina
Vladimir Josef Krajina was born at Slavonice, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic) on 13th April 1905. He was educated at Charles University, Prague, where he graduated with the earned degree of D.Sc. cum laude in 1927. In World War II, he was a leader of the Czech underground resistance for which he received both military and civilian honours. “The hero of the democratic underground was Professor Vladimir Krajina,” wrote Korbel (1959, p. 55). After the war, he returned to Charles University as a professor. He was elected to the Czech parliament in 1945 and served as General Secretary of the largest democratic […]
Luis Oliveira
Luis Oliveira (Lic. Oporto, PhD UBC) arrived at UBC Botany in 1970, to do a PhD with Thana Bisalputra. After completing his thesis on the ultrastructure of senescence during the culture of the brown alga Ectocarpus, he returned to Portugal for national military service, and then returned to Vancouver for post-doctoral work with Thana in 1975. He was appointed to the faculty in 1978, with specific tasks for Luis to contribute teaching in first year, Biology 200, and Biology 340. His wife, Julie Celestino, was the technical assistant to the curator of the Phycology herbarium, Bob Scagel. Both Julie and Luis […]
Greg Bole
It is with great sadness that the Botany Department shares the news that Associate Professor of Teaching Greg Bole died on Sunday, August 22, 2021. Greg excelled as an instructor, and we will miss our warm and willing friend and colleague. He was jointly appointed in the departments of Botany and Zoology. Greg’s love of science and evolution were infectious. He inspired undergraduate students with his wit, good humour, and enthusiasm. His students fondly recall the way that Greg made his thoughtful lectures interesting and fun. In lieu of flowers, Greg requested donations to his favourite charities, Doctors Without Border or […]
John Davidson
John Davidson (1878 – 1970). By: David Brownstein. Photo: http://botanyjohn.org/gallery/v/ubcbgslides/2005_680_0251.jpg.html Photo Caption: “John Davidson on Skwoach Mountain, ca 1915.” Photo Credit: University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, John Davidson Lantern Slide 251. John Davidson differed from most UBC faculty in that he never held any formal university degrees. He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, to a working-class family. Without money for tuition, Davidson found a back door to higher education by becoming a boy attendant in the botany department at the University of Aberdeen. Davidson assisted in museum and laboratory research work, eventually taking charge of the […]
Kathleen Cole
By Dr. Robert Scagel Kay Cole spent her early years as a child in the small community of Wells (near Barkerville), later moving with her family to a home in the upper levels of West Vancouver. I first new Kay as a graduate student in the Department of Biology and Botany at U.B.C. We were both students on honour programmes in the Department – Kay in Biology and I in Botany. Our supervisor was Andrew Hutchinson, Head of the Department. As Honours students we were provided with office/study space in the then Applied Science Building on the West Mall. We had […]
Paul J. Harrison
Paul J. Harrison grew up in Ontario on a farm and attended the University of Toronto. He moved to the Botany department at Guelph for an MSc in plant ecology. After he worked with Canadian University Students Overseas (CUSO) in Ghana and was posted to the coast, he found interests in Marine Biology. He did a PhD in Oceanography at the University of Washington, and he joined UBC in September 1975. He had a prolific research program in Biological Oceanography, jointly appointed between the Departments of Botany and Earth, Oceans, and Atmospheric Science (EOAS-https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/news-events/news/1484208000). He mentored many students and postdocs, including […]
Cara Haney
Research Interests Plants depend on their associated microbes for pathogen protection and nutrient uptake Arabidopsis root colonized by beneficial Pseudomonas fluorescens
Neil Towers
Reprinted with permission from the Botanical Electronic News (click here to see original article on BEN) Neil Towers, a much respected scientist and Professor at the University of British Columbia, passed away on November 15th, 2004 in Vancouver. He was 81. Predeceased by mother Kathleen and brother Desmond, Neil will be lovingly remembered and sadly missed by his wife Elizabeth and his eight children. He will be greatly missed by colleagues, students, and friends at the University of British Columbia (Botany Department) and around the world. UBC Emeritus Professor of Botany Neil Towers was well known nationally and internationally for his outstanding […]
Bruce Bohm
Professor Emeritus
Carol Ann Borden
Instructor Emeritus
Terry Crawford
Instructor Emeritus
Robert DeWreede
Professor Emeritus
Ron Foreman
Professor Emeritus
Fred Ganders
Professor Emeritus
Anthony Glass
Physiology, biochemistry, and molecular genetics of inorganic ion transport across membranes of plant roots. Physiological aspects of hydroponic growth. Research Interests Plant nutrition involves the acquisition of the essential chemical elements, and their utilization for growth and development. Research in my laboratory is focussed upon membrane transport processes responsible for transferring inorganic ions (particularly K+, NH4+ and NO3-) across the plasma membrane, from external (soil) solution, into the roots of higher plants. We are studying these transport processes, with emphasis on NO3- and NH4+ transport, at the molecular level (cloning genes and examining the results of gene deletions), through the physiological […]
Beverley Green
Genomics, molecular evolution and chloroplast protein import in algae with chlorophyll c (diatoms, dinoflagellates and other chromists). Evolution of genes for light-harvesting antenna proteins and their stress-induced relatives. Photoacclimation in diatoms. Replication and transcription of minicircular chloroplast genes in dinoflagellates. Research Interests All my research is concerned with chloroplasts, the photosynthetic organelles of eukaryotic cells. It brings together the structure of photosynthetic membrane proteins with the evolution of the gene families that encode them, as well as the evolutionary origins of the chloroplasts themselves. We are currently investigating the amazing minicircular genes found in dinoflagellate chloroplasts‹each gene on its own individual […]
Anthony Griffiths
Professor Emeritus