UBC News Digest

The UBC News Digest is a weekly summary of news stories about UBC people, research, learning, community, and internationalization initiatives. News Digest past issues are also available on-line.

Aug. 23, 2004

• Five UBC Professors Earn the Order of Canada
• Chatelaine Recognizes Contribution to Women’s Health
• Law Student Wins Justice Minister Award
• Student Trains at Kennedy Space Centre

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Five UBC Professors Earn the Order of Canada

Health economist Robert Evans, historical geographer Richard Colebrook Harris, architect Patricia Patkau, mining engineer Del Fredlund, and Martha Salcudean, Canada's first female head of a university engineering department, all of UBC, were among 11 B.C. residents named on July 29 to the Order of Canada.

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Chatelaine Recognizes Contribution to Women’s Health

UBC doctoral student Shona Penhale is one of nine Canadian researchers who has been recognized by Chatelaine magazine in its September issue for their contributions to women's health. Penhale, who recently completed her master's degree in anatomy, has boldly gone where no scientist has gone before -- and mapped the previously unidentified nerves that cause sexual pleasure in women.

Penhale has unravelled the mysterious conduits of nerves that lace through a mere -- but critical -- eight centimetres of the vagina.

The results could provide vital information about female sexual dysfunction, may lead to a viable Viagra for women and could help surgeons avoid damaging crucial pleasure-carrying nerve pathways during surgery.

Chatelaine selected Penhale, who begins med school at UBC in the fall, and the other eight Women's Health Heros Award recipients based on discussions with leading women's health experts across Canada.

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Law Student Wins Justice Minister Award

UBC law student Satinder K. Sidhu has received the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada's Dispute Resolution Award in Law Studies in 2003. Sidhu won the award for her paper entitled: Perspectives on Conflict Resolution in South Asian Families: Examining the Role of Family Mediation.

The award is part of a biannual competition open to all Canadian law students. Students in the UBC Program on Dispute Resolution have won two of the last three competitions.

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Student Trains at Kennedy Space Centre

Shane Lloyd, a second-year pharmacology student and a recipient of the Canadian Space Agency science scholarship, was one of three Canadian students who participated in an intensive training program at NASA this summer.

Lloyd took part in a six-week training program at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida as part of the NASA Space Flight and Life Sciences Training Program. Training included various stages of space-flight simulation experiments and life sciences research.

Lloyd has also received a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) prize for his work on the evolution of gregarines.

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