UBC Applied Science researchers awarded Vanier scholarships, Banting fellowship

Four UBC Applied Science doctoral students have received Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships from the Government of Canada in recognition of their leadership skills, scholarly achievements and research potential. 

Meryem Belkadi, Elizabeth Castle, Rivkah Gardner-Frolick and Athanasios Kritharis will receive $50,000 per year for up to three years to support their work in the areas of urban development, blood stem cells, environmental justice and the manufacture of vaccines.   

Launched in 2008, the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship program aims “to strengthen Canada's ability to attract and retain world-class doctoral students and establish Canada as a global centre of excellence in research and higher learning.” This year, 166 new Vanier Canada Graduate Scholars were named across Canada, twenty of whom are at UBC. 

In addition, the Government of Canada awarded a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship to chemical and biological engineering postdoctoral research fellow Litao Zhu in support of his work on particle-laden flows, research that will improve our understanding of drug delivery and blood flow.  

Valued at $70,000 per year for two years, the fellowship aims to support projects that will “positively contribute to Canada's economic, social, and research-based growth”. This year, six of the 70 postdoctoral fellows who received Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships nationally are at UBC.  

“The recipients of this year’s Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships could not be more deserving of these prestigious awards,” said The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, in the Government of Canada release. “They will bring critical new insights to their fields, help ensure that cutting-edge discoveries and innovations continue to propel Canada as a global leader and contribute to a healthier, greener, more equitable and more prosperous future.” '

Both awards are funded through the three federal research granting agencies: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For more information about the awards and UBC's awardees, please see the announcement on the website of UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
 
Vanier Canada Graduate Scholars at UBC Applied Science  

Meryem Belkadi 
School of Community and Regional Planning 
"How are employment outcomes for women impacted by displacement from the slums? A case study of the gendered impact of a nationwide slum clearance program in Morocco" 

Elizabeth Castle 
School of Biomedical Engineering 
"Engineering an in vitro arterial niche for the development of lymphoid-competent hematopoietic stem cells" 

Rivkah Gardner-Frolick 
Department of Mechanical Engineering 
"A novel methodological framework for air pollution and environmental justice in Canada"

Athanasios Kritharis 
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering 
"A new technological paradigm for low-cost, decentralized vaccine manufacture" 

 
Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at UBC Applied Science 

Litao Zhu 
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering 
“Machine learning assisted multiscale computational modeling of particle-laden flows: application to blood flow and targeted drug delivery”