Dr. William Cheung, professor and Director of Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, who was appointed as a Canada Research Chair in Ocean Sustainability and Global Change (Tier II) in 2018 was renewed for another five years. His appointment will now be ending in 2028.
Dr. Cheung is a Professor and Director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, the University of British Columbia. He studies the nexus of food-climate-biodiversity in the ocean. He is the Principal Investigator of the Changing Ocean Research Unit at UBC. He serves as Director for a 6-year SSHRC Partnership “Solving the Sustainability Challenges at the Food-Climate-Biodiversity Nexus”. He is an international leader in developing and using scenarios and models to explore solution options and pathways to desirable and sustainable ocean futures. His work addresses policy-relevant research questions and cuts across multiple disciplines, from oceanography to ecology, economics and social sciences. His research ranges from local to global scales. He recently received a Doctor Honoris Causa – France’s highest education honor – from the Institute Agro-Rennes. He has received multiple international and national awards and recognitions, including the Prix d’Excellence Award of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, the E. R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, and was named as the top 20 world’s most influential climate scientists by Reuters.
Dr. Christopher (Chris) Harley, a professor cross appointed in UBC Zoology and the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, received a NSERC Alliance Grant of $1,897,065 for the Sentinels of Change project This project is co-sponsored by the Tula Foundation and Hakai Institute.
The Sentinels of Change project is an initiative driven by communities and scientists from across coastal British Columbia. Together, they are investigating the patterns of biodiversity in benthic (bottom-dwelling) ecosystems in the Salish Sea, and how this biodiversity is changing through time. This research includes a community-based light trapping project to survey Dungeness crab larvae, assessments of the potential for non-indigenous species spread, experiments in kelp forests and rocky intertidal shores, and biodiversity surveys on species ranging from microbes to seaweeds to poorly understood marine invertebrates.
Dr Harley studies the impact of climate change on nearshore and rocky shore marine environments, with an emphasis on benthic plants and animals. His focus is on how climatic factors, such as temperature, salinity, carbon dioxide concentration, and pH, along with biological relationships, such as predation and facilitation, interact to create ecological patterns in time and space. Dr. Harley received the Murray A. Newman Award for Excellence in Coastal Ocean Research in 2017, was a Peter Wall Scholar in 2015-16, and won the Timothy R. Parsons Award, from Fisheries and Oceans Canada in 2015.
Dr. Alyssa Gehman, Dr. Mary O’Connor Dr. Kayla King, Dr. Alex Moore, Dr. Margot Hessing-Lewis, Dr. Matt Lemay, Dr. Colleen Kellogg, Dr. Patrick Keeling, Dr. Laura Parfrey, and Dr. Patrick Martone are all are also principal investigators on this project.
Tags: awards, British Columbia, Canada, Canada Research Chair, Christopher Harley, funding, NSERC, Solving FCB, sustainability, William Cheung