Simon Bates
Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Teaching and Learning
604.822.8644
simon.bates@ubc.ca
Dr. Simon Bates is the Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Teaching and Learning.
Dr. Bates joined UBC in 2012, as one of the first cohort at the new rank of Professor of Teaching, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He served as Academic Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology for six years. In 2018, he joined the Provost's office as Associate Provost, Teaching and Learning, and was appointed as Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Teaching and Learning, pro tem, effective July 1, 2022, and as Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Teaching and Learning, effective July 1, 2024.
As Vice-Provost, Dr. Bates has the leadership responsibility for teaching, learning and technology support to faculty and departments creating credit and non-credit learning opportunities spanning areas of undergraduate, graduate and lifelong learning at UBC.
Dr. Bates read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, before undertaking a PhD in computational chemistry at the University of Manchester. Following post-doctoral appointments in The Netherlands and England, he was appointed to fixed-term lectureship positions in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, and Trinity College, Dublin. Returning to Edinburgh in 2000, he took up a permanent appointment in the School of Physics and Astronomy, initially as Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, then Professor of Physics Education in 2008, the first professorial appointment in science and engineering at Edinburgh through the educational scholarship route.
As a passionate champion of evidence-based and technology-enhanced approaches, Dr. Bates continues to teach introductory physics courses, including leading an initiative in paired teaching. He has received teaching awards from the University of Edinburgh (2006, 2011) and from UBC (2016). Away from work, he is an avid and year-round cyclist, despite the Vancouver weather.