People

UBC Reports
September 19, 1996

Two members of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences are the recipients of special awards bestowed by their alma maters.

Gerald Straley, research scientist and curator of collections at UBC's Botanical Garden, has been honored with the 1996 Significant Achievement Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio University.

Straley was cited for his accomplishments at the Botanical Garden and as co-ordinator of the multi-volume Flora of North America.

Eleanore Vaines-Chamberlain, an associate professor of Family and Nutritional Sciences, was selected as an outstanding alumna by the College of Human Ecology at Michigan State University.

Vaines-Chamberlain's research interests include family life in contemporary society and communication in families. She will be presented with the award this fall during special celebration ceremonies marking the college's centennial year.

Dr. Ray Baker, an assistant professor in the Dept. of Family Practice, is one of seven B.C. nominees for the 1996 Manning Awards.

Baker was nominated for the creation of the AMIR (Addiction Medicine and Intercollegial Responsibility) program.

AMIR uses a multidisciplinary team of academics and community-based instructors to train UBC medical students to detect and prevent substance abuse in patients and to motivate them to take part in treatment and recovery programs.

Introduced into the curriculum in 1991, AMIR is the only program of its kind at a Canadian university.

The Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation is a national, privately funded non-profit organization established to promote the recognition and encouragement of Canadian innovators in all disciplines. Awards range from $5,000 to $100,000.

Award winners will be announced in October.

Michael Smith is one of 12 prominent Canadians named by Prime Minister Jean Chretien to the newly formed Advisory Council on Science and Technology.

The council, a cornerstone of the recently announced federal science and technology strategy, will report to the prime minister and advise the cabinet's Economic Development Policy Committee.

In its first year, the council will focus on the development of private sector leadership in innovation and the establishment of new partnerships between government and the private sector to address the innovation challenges facing Canadian industry.

Smith, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is a Peter Wall Distinguished Professor of Biotechnology, a University Killam Professor and a professor of biochemistry.

Mary Kelly, a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, has been awarded a $10,000 renewal grant to fund her PhD thesis research from the Society of Actuaries. The society awards grants to candidates whose thesis research can make a significant contribution to academic and actuarial literature. Her thesis is titled An Economic Analysis of the Property-Casualty Insurance Market. Kelly is one of three recipients of renewal grants in Canada and the U.S. The Society of Actuaries is an international educational, research and professional membership organization with more than 17,000 members in the U.S. and Canada practising in the fields of life and health insurance, investments, pensions and employee benefits.

Rajesh Krishna, a PhD student in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, is one of six graduate students in North America to receive this year's American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists/Proctor and Gamble award for excellence in graduate research in drug delivery and pharmaceutical technology.

Krishna's research focuses on devising pharmacotherapeutic strategies to overcome the problem of multidrug resistance in cancer.

He will deliver a paper on the topic at the association's annual meeting in October.