Updated: July 1, 2023
Members-at-large
Gail Bellward - Member at Large (2020-2023)
Chair Continuing Scholarly Activity and Engagement Committee (2021- )
Member of Finance Committee (2021 - )
Dr. Gail Bellward is a Professor Emerita of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Her undergraduate teaching areas were cardiovascular and renal pharmacology, and general toxicology. Gail’s focus as a research scientist was the study of drug metabolism and drug interactions. She was Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the Faculty for a number of years, and served on many UBC committees, as well as on Senate.
Gail was a Killam Senior Fellow; won the YWCA Woman of Distinction award; and senior awards from the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada and the Society of Toxicology of Canada. Gail was a Director of the Science Council of BC; and served on many national and international science boards, including the Medical Research Council of Canada, and the International Union of Pharmacology. Of note, she was the first woman president of two learned societies, the Pharmacological Society of Canada and the Society of Toxicology of Canada. After her retirement, Gail served as the Chair of the UBC Clinical Research Ethics Board for four years, followed by six years as a lay member for the Law Society of BC.
Sandra Bressler - Member at Large (2021-2023 and 2019-2021)
Programs Coordinator (2023-)
Member Programs Committee (2019-2023)
Member Transitions to Retirement Committee (2019-),
Sandra was recently awarded Clinical Associate Professor Emerita status. She is recognized for her contributions to education, coordinating numerous students in clinical placements, directly supervising students, and supporting supervisory staff. Sandra also taught multiple courses for the Online Master of Rehabilitation Science Program and the Master of Occupational Therapy, in addition to helping develop a postgraduate program for clinicians in British Columbia.
Sandra’s many contributions to her profession include an instrumental role in supporting the development of the College of Occupational Therapists of BC, where she served as a board member from its inception from 2000 to 2004 and member of the Inquiry Committee from 2001-2016. She served as President of the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists and the President of the Canadian Occupational Therapy Foundation. After serving as CAOT Delegate to the World Federation of Occupational Therapists for nine years, she joined the Executive Management Team of the WFOT as Program Coordinator, Practice Development. Recognizing her long-standing contributions to the profession, Sandra was bestowed with the prestigious Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists Fellowship Award and received the Karen Goldenberg Award for outstanding volunteer achievement from the Canadian Occupational Foundation.
Wendy Hall - Member at Large (2022-2025)
Dr. Wendy A. Hall is a Professor Emeritus of the School of Nursing. She is the recipient of two UBC Killam Teaching Prizes, a Registered Nurses Association of BC award of excellence in Nursing Education and a College of Registered Nurses of BC award of excellence in Nursing Research. Dr. Hall received the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing Award for Excellence in Nursing Education (Tenured) in 2016. Her program of research focuses on building parental capacity, particularly competence and confidence, and linking parental capacity to healthy child development, particularly in the area of pediatric sleep. Dr. Hall has developed behavioral interventions to assist parents to manage children’s sleep problems and acts as a consultant to parents who are experiencing children’s sleep problems. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and abstracts. Dr. Hall served as an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and as an Associate Director the School of Nursing Graduate Program. She was a UBC Senator from 2008-2014. She has remained active in research projects following her retirement.
Niamh Kelly - Member at Large (2022-2025)
Niamh Kelly. Having finished her Ph.D. at Trinity College Dublin (in 1985) Niamh joined UBC’s Department of Microbiology as a post-doctoral fellow and, a few years later was hired into the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Sciences as an Assistant Professor. Her research, funded by both the Irish and Canadian Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Associations, examined the role of a specific organism, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in CF lung infections. Called upon to teach the heavily subscribed (700 students) Introductory Microbiology course Niamh found she really enjoyed teaching.
When the Faculty of Medicine put out a call for faculty members to lead the transformation of the medical curriculum from its didactic lecture-based format to a more modern PBL (problem-based learning) approach Niamh answered the call. Building on this, with the expansion of the medical school to Prince George and Vancouver Island (via video linked instruction) Niamh lead the rollout of the first two years science-based curriculum. Starting her day by flying north over the BC landscape or taking the helijet over the ocean to Victoria made for scenic workdays.
With a growing passion for science education Niamh began to design science workshops in the community. Working with School Boards, Parent Associations, home schoolers and Science World she ran programs demystifying science for school children, their teachers and their parents. Where possible she engaged UBC’s science students in the design and delivery of these “hands-on science” programs in what she saw as ‘trickle-down’ learning.
All three of Niamh’s endeavours - research, teaching and community service/outreach- were grant funded, published and awarded honors. Now retired, Niamh would like engage (with) her fellow Emeriti in sharing their knowledge beyond the academy with the communities we inhabit.
Alan Mackworth - Member at Large (2021-2024)
Member Finance Committee (2022- )
Chair Finance Committee (2021-2022)
Alan Mackworth is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science. He works on constraint-based artificial intelligence with applications in vision, robotics, situated agents, assistive technology and computational sustainability. He is known for his work on constraint satisfaction, robot soccer, cognitive robotics, hybrid systems and constraint-based agents. He has authored over 130 papers and co-authored two books: Computational Intelligence: A Logical Approach and Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents.
Alan co-founded, and happily taught in, the pioneering UBC Cognitive Systems Program, spanning Arts and Science. He held a CRC in AI and served as President of three national and global AI societies: CAIAC, IJCAII, and AAAI. He was the founding Director of the UBC Laboratory for Computational Intelligence and of the UBC Centre for AI Decision-making and Action (CAIDA). He also co-founded two NCEs, IRIS and AGE-WELL, and the AI network of BC (AInBC). He currently acts as a consultant and occasional lecturer. He is a Fellow of AAAI, CAIAC, CIFAR, AGE-WELL and the Royal Society of Canada.
Paul Rogers - Member at Large (2022-2024)
Chair Finance Committee (2023-)
Member Finance Committee (2022-2023)
Dr. Paul Rogers: BSc, MBChB, DCH(Lond) FRCPC, FRCP(Lond) MBA is a Clinical Professor Emeritus, Dept of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch RSA. For the past 40 years, Dr. Rogers has worked in tertiary, university affiliated hospitals with clinical, teaching, research (clinical trials) and administrative responsibilities. He is the former Head of the Division & Program of Pediatric Oncology/Hematology/BMT at BC Children's Hospital. He is former President of the medical staff of Childrens & Womens hospital.
He is the former co-chair of the Canadian National Task force for Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) patients with cancer. He is the past Secretary General on the Board of The International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP) and involved with the SIOP Pediatric Oncology in developing Countries Committee (PODC). He remains active in clinical research with emphasis on nutrition, supportive care and longterm follow up of cancer survivors. He continues to teach and examine students, residents and co-supervise PhD students.
Patricia Shaw - Member at Large (2021-2024)
As a linguistic anthropologist, Patricia A. Shaw founded the First Nations Languages Program at UBC, and continues post-retirement to work in collaboration with several Indigenous communities and scholars on endangered language documentation and reclamation initiatives.
She was the Founding Editor of the UBC Press First Nations Languages Series; Director of the Aboriginal Languages and Literacy Institute at UBC (2006); and Director of the BC Breath of Life Archival Institute for First Nations Languages (2017).
International invited faculty positions include Semester at Sea; the Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang); the UC Berkeley Breath of Life, and the Smithsonian National Breath of Life Archival Institutes for Indigenous Languages. As well, she served as President of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA).
She has been honoured with the UBC Dean of Arts Award (2015) and the SSILA Ken Hale Award (2017).
Vijay Verma - Member at Large (2022-2025)
Vijay Verma, PMI Fellow, PMP, MBA, P.Eng, is an internationally known speaker, trainer and author with more than 40 years of experience in the area of Project Management. He has written the three-volume series originally published by PMI, which includes Organizing Projects for Success, Human Resource Skills for the Project Manager, and Managing the Project Team.
After three successful books published by PMI, Mr. Verma wrote his 4th book The Art of Positive Politics: A Key to Delivering Successful Projects published in June 2018 by Multi-Media Publications Inc. He is working on his 5th book on Leading with Purpose: Positive Power and Inspirational Influence and Next Generation Leadership to be published in 2023.
Mr. Verma received 2009 PMI Fellow Award, 1999 PMI David I. Cleland Project Management Literature Award, 1999 PMI Distinguished Contribution Award for significant contributions to the project management profession, and 2020 PMAC Fellow award from Project Management Association of Canada. Mr. Verma has presented several workshops on project management in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa, China, and India with participants from a wide range of industries. His presentations have been attended by over 4000 professionals working in area of Project Management and have helped enhance their skills and confidence in leadership, communication, influencing, managing politics, negotiating, managing conflicts, motivating stakeholders, and creating high-performance teams in a cross-cultural, multi-generational, and virtual environments.
Mr. Verma is currently an Emeritus and has worked for forty years in area of Project Management at TRIUMF (TRI University Meson Facility), Canada’s federally funded Particle Accelerator Centre and Canadian National Research Laboratory at UBC. Here he has provided project management services for projects varying in size, complexity, and diversity.
He lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, with his wife, three children, and seven grandchildren.
Marvin Westwood - Member at Large (2020-2023)
Marv Westwood is a Professor Emeritus in the Counselling Psychology Program, and recipient of the Royal Canadian Legion Professorship in Education. His major areas of teaching and research are focused on program development, teaching and delivery of group-based approaches to help clients make effective life transitions. Prior to coming to UBC, he taught at McGill University (1973-80). and prior to that St. Francis Xavier University (1971-73). Over the past 25 years he has led the development of the UBC Veterans Transition Program to help promote recovery from war related stress injuries for which he received both the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals in 2005 and 2013. In 2012 he established the Centre for Group Counselling and Trauma (CGCT) for teaching and research in the area of group work. He is advisor to the President’s initiative for the development of UBC Veteran Friendly Campus. Currently, he is Senior Advisor for the Institute of Veteran Education Transition (IVET).