2011 Annual Report
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2011 ANNUAL REPORT Where Converging Minds Freely Explore 2011 Annual Report 4 PETER WALL INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES 06 Outgoing Director’s Message 08 Incoming Director’s Message Residential Programs 11 Peter Wall Distinguished Professors 16 Distinguished Scholars in Residence 24 Distinguished Scholars Research Events 26 Early Career Scholars 32 Peter Wall Distinguished Visiting Professor 36 The Wall Exchange 40 2011 At a Glance Thematic Programs 43 Major Thematic Grant 50 Exploratory Workshop Grant 52 Theme Development Workshops & Colloquia 56 Faculty Associates Forum 60 Special Events 35 International Partnerships 62 International Partnerships 35 About the Institute 00 66 Funding and Governance 66 Facilities 68 Director and Staff 2011 ANNUAL REPORT 5 OUTGOING DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE While the annual Director’s message typically appraises the events and accomplishments of the year under review and offers enticing glimpses into the future, a different message is surely called for when one is stepping down after many years, as I am now. My plan is to reflect on the directions of the Institute over the decade for which I have intimate knowledge. There were, of course, things new and special about the Institute in 2011. Two absolutely critical appointments were made: Janis Sarra, as incoming Director, and Derek Gregory as a Peter Wall Distinguished Professor. Janis Sarra, who takes office on January 1, 2012, is a prominent UBC specialist in corporate law, commercial insolvency, corporate finance, and securities law with a long history of commitment to the Institute. Derek Gregory is an internationally renowned human geographer, whose work skillfully bridges the humanities and social sciences and thus also complements the expertise and interests in the life sciences of our other Wall Distinguished Professor, Brett Finlay. Gregory’s opening lecture on “The Everywhere War” was the fall program of the new Wall Exchange, a novel series of free public lectures in downtown Vancouver. The Exchange had been launched on May 3, 2011 with a talk by one of the world’s leading visionaries, J. Craig Venter, on “Synthetic Life.” Both talks were broadcast nationally in the CBC Radio “Ideas” series. The Institute has always been a progressive place inspiring interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and risk taking. The calibre of its work in these respects has only improved with age, as exemplified by the selection of Sarah (Sally) Otto, UBC evolutionary with, our partner institute, the Technical University of Munich – Institute for biologist, early Wall Distinguished Scholar in Residence, and current Advanced Study. The newest MTG project is the David Speert-led study member of the Institute’s Academic Advisory Committee, as a 2011 of the causes of enhanced rates of illness and death in HIV-exposed MacArthur Fellow for her scientific brilliance and creativity. Most rewarding but uninfected infants. For the first time, the research site is abroad – in to me in particular have been the ways in which the Institute’s thematic, South Africa, a country with the highest incidence of HIV-AIDS worldwide residential, and new international partnership programs increasingly – but with all the analysis carried out at UBC. Our partnership with expand and mesh with the intellectual engagement of the Institute in the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study and our Wall Colloquia the world. This intersection and expansion of programs and growing Abroad co-sponsored with STIAS in 2009 has been critical to the lengthy international involvement has been especially evident since 2005, with development of protocols and research teams for this extraordinarily the inauguration of both the Peter Wall Distinguished Visiting Professor promising and high-risk MTG project now in its early stages. program and the Wall Summer Institute for Research (WSIR). Both While the future of the Institute appears favourable, one serious programs have had many positive impacts internationally, including the impediment that my predecessor Kenneth MacCrimmon always faced launching of our International Partnership program with the Collège de and that has not been easily overcome has to do with the Institute’s France in 2008. The first Visiting Professor, Arif Dirlik, not only completed finances: the lack of predictable and stable funding. Completely a seminal monograph on global modernity at the Institute but returned endowment-funded, the Institute relies at this point almost entirely on frequently to co-lead successful initiatives, including most recently the dividend income from a large donation of shares in a single company. 2008 WISR on “Global Capital and the Future of Agrarian Society” and Although high dividend earnings have accrued over the past three years, follow-up visit to China in 2009; a related volume co-edited by Dirlik and the timing and value of the dividends from the beginning has fluctuated Alexander Woodside is to be published in 2012. It was the success of widely. However, our recent efforts with the Institute’s Trustees and senior gala public talks given in conjunction with this WSIR that spawned the UBC administrators to address the problem promise to achieve financial idea for the Wall Exchange. security very soon. There remains the challenge posed by the Institute’s The number of books and special issues of journals emerging over the complex governing structure and unique standing at UBC. I have years from Institute programs have been exceptional, bringing national learned the critical need to nurture the academic integrity and academic and international recognition to our programs and to UBC scholars and independence of the Institute if the place is truly to represent something contributing materially to debates across all academic fields. In other exceptional. And I have learned never to take the existence and quality of media, audio podcasts of talks by Faculty Associates and visiting scholars the Peter Wall Institute for granted. have since January 2008 been available for download on the Institute’s On a personal note, over the ten years in which I moved through the website, as have video recordings of keynote speakers as well as the stages of Scholar in Residence, Acting Director, and Director, with a French Consulate in Vancouver interviews with the Wall Distinguished year off somewhere in there for a leave, I have always felt appreciated, Visiting Professors from the Collège de France. The Collège also posts respected, and trusted by Faculty Associates, Trustees, and international these and many other audio podcasts and videos resulting from our partners. I consider this level of professional support a remarkable partnership on its own homepage, a site that further raises the profile of gift, one that enabled me to build on the excellent intellectual footings the Peter Wall Institute to another million-plus visitors per year. created by Ken MacCrimmon. I am honoured to have been so intimately In revitalizing the Major Thematic Grant (MTG) program in 2007, the associated with the Institute for so long and wish nothing but the very Institute not only attracted international attention to its UBC researchers best to Janis Sarra as she brings her own energy and ideas to the role. and external collaborators, but also generated two of the three international Wall Colloquia Abroad held this year at, and co-sponsored Dianne Newell OUTGOING DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE 2011 ANNUAL REPORT 7 INCOMING DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE I am honoured to serve as Director of the Peter Wall Institute for During the first two weeks of my directorship, more than 200 Institute Advanced Studies, commencing January 1, 2012. Under the associates, faculty members, Deans and Heads of Department at UBC stewardship of outgoing Director Dianne Newell, Peter Wall Distinguished participated in strategic planning sessions, discussing the strengths, Professor Brett Finlay, and President Toope and the Board of Trustees, challenges and opportunities for the Institute. These sessions will form the Institute has grown its programs and level of engagement in recent the foundation of a renewed strategic plan and a series of initiatives to years. In particular, the international partnership programs have allowed be launched in the spring of 2012. I look forward to working with the Institute new opportunities for intellectual engagement with leading scholars involved in projects the Institute has recently approved, scholars internationally. On behalf of all Associates of the Institute, I particularly Dr. David Speert, Pediatrics, and his co-investigators in the would like to thank Dianne Newell for her vision, her energy and her newly funded Major Thematic Grant on the Exploration of the Causes years of dedicated service as director. It has been a pleasure working of Enhanced Morbidity and Mortality for HIV-Exposed but Unaffected with her during the transition period in the fall of 2011, participating in Infants; the continued work of Professor Dinesh Pai and his co- the development of programs for the coming year. Critically important investigators in a Major Thematic Grant on Sensorimotor Computation to the success of the Institute’s programs has been the support of the and the scholars involved in the highly innovative upcoming Exploratory administrative and program management staff, Barbara Harrmann, Workshops. It is my hope that the Peter Wall Institute can continue to Emma MacEntee and Jana Berna, and I am delighted to be working build on the strengths of its existing programs, while exploring new with such a professional