Distinguished University Scholar Program

Vancouver

Allard School of Law

• Joel Bakan
• Pitman Potter
• Janis Sarra

Faculty of Applied Science

Architecture and Landscape Architecture

• Raymond Cole

Civil Engineering

• Nemkumar Banthia
• Tarek Sayed

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Purang Abolmaesumi
• Guy Dumont
• Sidney Fels

Mechanical Engineering

• Yusuf Altintas

Nursing

• Annette Browne
• Elizabeth Saewyc

Faculty of Arts

Art History, Visual Art and Theory

• Ken Lum

Asian Studies

• Edward Slingerland
• Sunera Thobani

Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies

• Anthony Barrett
• Franco de Angelis

English and Literatures

• Sherrill Grace
• Pamela Dalziel
• Barbara Dancygier
• Siân Echard
• Ira Nadel

First Nations and Indigenous Studies / English Language and Literatures

• Daniel Heath Justice

Geography

• Trevor Barnes
• Derek Gregory
• Jamie Peck

Linguistics

• Lisa Matthewson

Music

• Jane Coop
• David Metzer

Philosophy

• Dominic Lopes
• Alan Richardson
• Catherine Wilson

Political Science

• Richard Johnston

Psychology

• Eric Eich
• James Enns
• Liisa Galea
• Geoff Hall
• Steven Heine
• Alan Kingstone
• Ara Norenzayan
• Sheila Woody

Sociology

• Richard Ericson

Vancouver School of Economics

• Erwin Diewert
• Patrick Francois
• Thomas Lemieux

Faculty of Dentistry

• Chris Overall

Faculty of Education

Curriculum and Pedagogy

• Rita Irwin
• Graeme Chalmers

Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education

• Linda Siegel
• Bruno Zumbo

Kinesiology

• William Sheel
• Patricia Vertinksy

Language and Literacy Education

• Patricia Duff
• Bonny Norton
• John Willinsky

Faculty of Forestry

Forest and Conservation Sciences

• Jöerg Bohlmann
• Scott Hinch

Faculty of Medicine

Cellular and Physiological Sciences

• Calvin Roskelley
• Joanne Weinberg

Medical Genetics

• Connie Eaves
• Jan Friedman

Molecular Oncology

• Sam Aparicio

Neurology

• Judy Illes
• Yu Tian Wang

Physical Therapy

• Lara Boyd

Psychiatry

• Alaa El-Husseini

Urologic Sciences

• Martin Gleave

Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences

• Thomas Chang
• Mary Ensom

Faculty of Science

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

• Natalie Strynadka

Botany

• Patrick Keeling

Chemistry

• Curtis Berlinguette (joint appointment with Chemical & Biological Engineering)

• Allan Bertram

• Roman Krems

Computer Science

• Kevin Leyton-Brown

Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

• Catherine Johnson
• Curtis Suttle

Mathematics

• Nassif Ghoussoub

Physics and Astronomy

• Bill Unruh

Zoology

• David Jones
• Mary O'Connor
• Daniel Pauly
• Diane Srivastava
• Andrew Trites

Sauder School of Business

Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources

• Sandra Robinson

Okanagan

Faculty of Applied Science

School of Engineering

• Rehan Sadiq

Faculty of Health and Social Development

Health & Exercise Sciences

• Kathleen Martin-Ginis

School of Nursing

• Joan Bottorff

The Office of the Provost & and Vice-President, Academic (Vancouver), administers the Distinguished University Scholar (DUS) program every second year. It runs in alternate years to the University Killam Professor program which is administered by the Office of the VP Research & Innovation.

Up to 10 new Distinguished University Scholars will be conferred in each adjudication round every two years.

DUS appointees receive one-time research support in the amount of $20,000, plus a stipend of $20,000 per year for five years. The annual stipend is potentially renewable once, for another five-year term.

A limited number of additional DUS nominations may be adjudicated during each two-year period, if needed in exceptional circumstances for the recruitment or retention of outstanding faculty who meet the DUS criteria at the highest level. 

The DUS title continues to be held by the Distinguished University Scholar as long as they are a tenured member of UBC faculty or a UBC Professor Emeritus. For grant-tenured faculty members, the DUS title would be carried for the duration of their position at UBC.

If a Distinguished University Scholar later attains the designation of University Killam Professor, the UKP funding takes precedence and the five-year DUS annual stipends would be discontinued. 

• Nominees will be full-time* tenured UBC faculty members in the research or educational leadership streams, including Associate Professor, Associate Professor of Teaching, Professor, or Professor of Teaching.
• Both Vancouver and Okanagan tenured faculty members are eligible for nomination.
• A Canada Research Chair holder cannot be nominated for DUS, except where the CRC term would end prior to, or at the same time as, the start date of the DUS appointment.
• University Killam Professors, or special chairs such as President's Excellence Chairs, CERCs, Principal's Research Chairs or Endowed Chairs, would not be eligible for nomination.

*This can include full-time faculty who currently have reduced loads for a variety of reasons such as disability.

Nominations are evaluated based on the quality of the nominee's work and proposed scholarly program. The following criteria are considered:

• Distinguished University Scholars should be outstanding and innovative scholars whose accomplishments have had a significant impact in the field.
• Distinguished University Scholars should have received international recognition as leaders in the field.
• A Distinguished University Scholar's record in attracting and supervising a diversity of students and trainees should be exemplary, taking into account the practices and standards of the field.
• A Distinguished University Scholar's proposed scholarly program should be innovative, original and of high quality.
• Distinguished University Scholars' work should be at the level of scholarly excellence demonstrated by Tier 1 Canada Research Chairs and similar distinguished faculty.
• To the extent possible in their field, a Distinguished University Scholar and their scholarly program have demonstrated efforts to model equitable and inclusive research activities (e.g. across research design, community engagement, research team composition, research team competency and culture, research evironment and climate, highly-qualified personnel and early-career researcher development, and knowledge translation.

The Invitation for Nominations is issued in alternating years. The 2023 program is complete, and the next program will run in 2025. 

Nominations are submitted to the Office of the Provost and VP Academic (UBC Vancouver) and are submitted by the Dean of the Faculty in which the nominee holds their primary appointment. The allowable number of nominations from each Faculty is listed below.

Deans' Offices should establish their own equitable processes for internally collecting and adjudicating nominations well before the deadline for submitting to the Provost Office.

To ensure an equitable distribution of nominations, the following allocations have been developed based on Faculty FTE counts:   

UBC Vancouver

UBC Okanagan

The following components must be included in the nomination package:

1. A letter from the Dean (maximum two pages) with rationale for the nomination. The nominee's work should be described in language that can be understood by non-experts in the field. It would be helpful to include a summary of highlights of the nominee's publishing record, and a note about publication norms for the field as these can vary between Faculties.
2. A short description (1 page preferred; maximum 2 pages) prepared by the nominee describing in general terms their current work and scholarly plans for the next five years. The document should be written in language that can be understood by non-experts in the field, if possible.
3. Three letters of support, each from a referee who is arms-length to the candidate and external to UBC, commenting on the scholarly excellence of the nominee and their suitability for the DUS designation. Refer to the SAC Guide for definition of "arms length". Letters should be written to the adjudication panel specifically for the DUS nomination. Please include a brief description of the research and profile of each referee.
4. The nominee's curriculum vitae, in standard UBC format.

Each nomination package is to be organized into a single PDF file and attached to an email from the Dean's Office to the Deputy Provost (emailed to the care of selina.fast@ubc.ca). The next submission deadline will be in 2025 (exact date to be posted here once available).

If internal adjudication took place within the Faculty, Deans’ Offices are encouraged to notify Departments, or nominees directly, as to whether their nominations were successful or unsuccessful in being selected for submission to the Provost Office for final adjudication.

Members of an Adjudication Panel evaluate nominations for Distinguished University Scholar using the Selection Criteria.  The evaluation rubric will be posted here for transparency in 2025. 

The Adjudication Panel makes recommendations to the President.  Upon acceptance by the President, the new DUS appointees will be notified and their appointments will be announced to the UBC community. The appointees' funding will begin the following April 1.

Adjudication Panel will include the following members and include at least one member from UBC Okanagan:

• Chair: preferred to be a current or former Chair of the Senior Appointments Committee
• The Chair of the Faculty Research Awards Committee
• 3-4 diverse current Distinguished University Scholars, selected by the Deputy Provost
• 3-4 diverse emeriti Distinguished University Scholars, selected by the Deputy Provost
• The Deputy Provost (observer)
• The Executive Assistant to the Deputy Provost (secretary)

We anticipate launching the nomination process for the next round in 2025. More information will be provided closer to the date.

While the title of Distinguished University Scholar is held as long as the DUS is a tenured member of faculty at the University, the funding (annual stipend only) is renewable once, for a second five-year term.

Distinguished University Scholars who are coming to the end of their first five-year term will be contacted six months in advance of the end date and invited to apply for renewal. Distinguished University Scholars who wish to apply should notify their Head or Director, who will need to submit the following:

• Application Form completed by the Distinguished University Scholar (template provided by the Provost Office).
• Applicant's curriculum vitae, in standard UBC format.
• Two letters of support that speak to the candidate's achievements in the first term and the ongoing relevance of the research, specifically:
  • a letter from the Dean who supported the original nomination or his/her successor; please include a brief mention of publication norms for the field;
  • an external letter of support from an established authority in the field without a conflict of interest with the applicant.

The Head or Director should forward the above documents (application + two letters + CV) as one PDF file to the Provost Office by the deadline advised.

A subset of the adjudication committee, including the Chair, two current DUS, two emeriti DUS, and the Deputy Provost (observer), will review the renewal application packages and make recommendations to the President.  Recommendations will be based on evidence that the Distinguished University Scholar has and will continue to sustain a level of excellence expected across the evaluation criteria. 

Renewal applicants will be notified of their results approximately six to eight weeks prior to the end of their funding terms.

Please contact Selina Fast (selina.fast@ubc.ca) if you need additional information or have questions.