LFS Today Dec 5, 2022

News

Pacific Agriculture Show – sign up before Jan. 3

The Pacific Agriculture Show is coming up from January 26 to 28, 2023 at the Abbotsford Tradex Exhibition Centre.

The Faculty and the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm will have a 10×10 booth for the three days and we are opening the booth to showcase faculty research to the producers who attend. If faculty members, lab staff or graduate students would like to volunteer for a 3-4 hour shift to meet-and-greet agriculture show attendees, they are welcome to join the booth!

We’ve set up a sign-up sheet – please sign up for the booth before January 3:
https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bDVrj4sPdgH4sTA

Your lab or research group can provide promotional materials – providing background about your work and/or including a call-to-action for show attendees – as well as research slides (up to 5) for our screen display.

If you have any questions, please contact Shannon Wong (shannon.wong@ubc.ca) or Karen Lee (Karen.lee98@ubc.ca).

Events

Dec. 6 – CityAge: Scaling Regenerative Agriculture with Sean Smukler

We use 40 percent of the Earth’s land surface for farming. That means our farming practices determine the health of almost half the earth’s land base.

That’s why CityAge and the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food are coming together to explore the potential of regenerative farming on December 6.

Hear speakers outline a number of important topics such as:

• Defining regenerative farming & exploring what growers think about it
• Identifying which practices fall under the category of regenerative
• Scaling and standardizing regenerative agriculture across the industry
• Maintaining profitability on the farm while adopting these practices
• How agtech can support and enhance regenerative agriculture

December 6

11:30am – 1:00pm PT

Learn more and register

Dec. 8 – LFS Scholar Series: Lactation: An evolutionary model for diet and health research

Abstract

The world is facing unprecedented challenges to produce a food supply that is both nourishing, safe and sustainable. Scientists are struggling to understand how to guide the future of agriculture and food in response to these 21st century challenges. Lactation provides an inspiring model of what research and its applications could be. Lactation emerged through evolution under the relentless selective pressure to be a sustainable bioreactor secreting biopolymers with diverse functions acting from the mammary gland through the digestive system of the infant. Scientific understanding of milk yields targets of efficacy: what are the mechanisms by which diet can improve the protection, performance and success of infants; with an impeccable safety dosser: milk is all that babies eat! As just one example, milk contains free oligosaccharides. These glycans reach the lower intestine where bacteria compete. One specific strain of bacteria, Bifidobacterium longum subspecies infantis, is capable of taking up, hydrolyzing and metabolizing the complex glycans of human milk. Such a symbiotic relationships provides value to both the microbe and the infant: the microbe gains a food supply and the infant gains protection from pathogens.

Dr. J. Bruce German: Distinguished Professor in Food Science and Technology, Director, Foods for Health Institute, University of California Davis (http://ffhi.ucdavis.edu/)

Thursday, December 8

10 – 11:30 am

Online and in-person (SPPH B151)

This presentation will be followed by a meet and greet from 11:30-12:00.

Please register here by Dec 6.

Dec. 14 – CNS Webinar: Feeding picky eaters: should we also talk about the caregivers?

Interested in better understanding picky eating and the role caregivers play in supporting their children to become competent eaters? Join us on December 14th with guest speaker Maude Perreault, RD, PhD!

Featured Speaker:
Maude Perreault, RD, PhD (she/her)
University of Montréal, Centre Jean-Jacques Gauthier, CR CIUSSS Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal

Moderated by Claire Tugault-Lafleur, PhD, RD/Dt.P. (She/Elle) – University of Ottawa

Wednesday, December 14, 2022 | 12:00 – 13:00 ET

Register

Deadlines

Jan. 27 – Call for Research Proposals | Work Learn International Undergraduate Research Awards

Are you looking for funding to hire international undergraduate students to work full-time on your research for Summer 2023? The Work Learn International Undergraduate Research Awards provides an award subsidy to hire international undergraduate students to work on your research projects while allowing students to explore workplace and research skills. These awards are valued at $6,000 and are distributed across seven Faculties/Schools at UBC Vancouver Campus.

Based on BC’s current minimum wage requirements (min. wage of $15.65/hour), the minimum pay for the tenure of the award of 16 weeks is $9,000.63, inclusive of 4% vacation pay; hence the minimum top-up from the supervisor is $3,000.63.

The Faculty of Land & Food Systems has Ten (10) WLIURAs available for 2023.

Summer 2023 Program Timeline:

• Call for Research Project Proposals period: November 28, 2022 – January 27, 2023.
  • Note: Faculty members will need to submit a proposal(s) on UBC CareersOnline. A student can work with a faculty member to submit a proposal together.
• The Centre for Student Involvement and Careers (CSI&C) to send all research project proposals pertaining to the Faculty/School by February 8, 2023.
• Deadline for Faculty/School offices to submit their list of funded proposals: February 28, 2023.
• CSI&C will send funding decisions to faculty members by the week of March 6, 2023.
• For faculty members who have not indicated an internal candidate for their position(s), it will be posted on UBC CareersOnline for students to apply from March 13 – 26, 2023.

Additional information about the program can be found on the Faculty and Staff webpage. Student eligibility information is available on Student Services website. LFS evaluation criteria and process are available on LFS Research Support website.

Please contact LFS Undergraduate Student Research Awards lfs.nserc-usra@ubc.ca if you have any questions.

May – 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Pre-Launch Announcement

The Government of Canada is leading the International Initiative for Research on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, with several international research funding organizations responding to Canada’s call for interest. Research funders from Brazil, Germany, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, among others, have joined as partners. The initiative will leverage international expertise to tackle global challenges caused by climate change.

Set to be launched in January 2023, the initiative will focus on interdisciplinary and trans-sectoral approaches to managing (mitigation and adaptation) eight risks identified by the IPCC as being relevant to groups most impacted by the effects of climate change, namely:

• Risks to low-lying coastal socio-ecological systems
• Risks to terrestrial and ocean ecosystems
• Risks associated with critical physical infrastructure, networks and services
• Risks due to extreme events, leading to the breakdown of physical infrastructure and networks providing critical goods and services, including infrastructure systems for energy, water, transportation, telecommunications, health care and emergency response, with impacts on the individuals, groups and populations that rely on them.
• Risks to living standards
• Risks to human health
• Risks to food security
• Risks to water security
• Risks to peace and to human mobility

Key timelines:

• January 2023: Competition launch
• May 2023: Deadline to submit required notice of intent to apply
• September 2023: Deadline to submit full application
• February 2024: Notice of funding decisions

Full details