Celebrating our successes: External award winners 2024-25
In 2024-25, over 15 different faculty and staff members received awards from external organizations, recognizing their incredible achievements in research and teaching. Recognition spans across all departments, and ranges from early career researchers to our emeritus professors.
Arif Babul (PHYS)
David H. Turpin Gold Medal for Career Achievement in Research – REACH Awards
Arif Babul is an internationally acclaimed astrophysicist who leads groundbreaking work on the impact of feedback on galaxies and larger cosmic structures. He was among the first to discover the influence of black holes on massive cosmic structures and is a foremost authority on the assembly and the physics of galaxy groups and clusters. Babul also leads the development of the first-ever deep-learning neural network that uses brain electrical activity to identify concussed individuals.
Julia Baum (BIOL)
Silver Medal for Excellence in Research – REACH Awards
Julia Baum studies the resilience of marine ecosystems in the face of human disturbance. A professor of ocean ecology and global change, a UVic President’s Chair and the Special Advisor Climate, she catalyzes climate action initiatives and facilitates connection in the climate research community. On top of leading an internationally recognized research program, Baum is the director of the graduate training program Coastal Climate Solutions Leaders.
Magdalena Bazalova-Carter (PHYS)
Fellow, American Association of Physicists in Medicine
The American Association of Physicists in Medicine Fellowship program honours members for their contributions to the advancement of medical physics knowledge based upon independent original research, medical physics educational activities, and leadership in the practice of medical physics. Bazalova-Carter is a medical physicist whose research on cancer radiotherapy technologies is leading to better treatment outcomes, less damage to healthy tissues, lower cost and greater global accessibility.
Caroline Cameron (BCMB)
Fellow, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences
Election to Fellowship in the Academy of Health Sciences is considered one of the highest honours for individuals in the Canadian health sciences community, and acknowledges outstanding contributions to the health sciences. Caroline Cameron is a world leader in the study of syphilis, an infectious disease with profound implications for reproductive health. She serves the global health community through leadership in roles in non-profit organizations dedicated to reducing sexually transmitted infections and enhancing reproductive health.
Learn more about Cameron’s work on syphilis
Ross Chapman (SEOS)
Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Medal, Acoustical Society of America
Ross Chapman has dedicated his career to understanding the ocean through the use of sound, and is a prominent figure in the field of ocean acoustics. He was awarded the Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Medal, which is awarded to individuals for contributions to the advancement of science through the application of acoustic principles or through research accomplishments in acoustics. Chapman was recognized for inventing geoacoustic inversion.
Laura Cowen (MATH)
Bob Riffenburgh Award, American Statistical Association
Laura Cowen is an ecological statistician studying animal demography through capture-recapture methods and applications. She works on human, fishery, aquaculture and seabird populations, estimating parameters such as survival and abundance. She received the Bob Riffenburgh Award in recognition of her work transferring statistical ecology methods to public health problems, including the enumeration of injection drug users and homeless people, COVID-19 disease analytics and serotype occupancy modelling.
Ruobing Dong (PHYS)
Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars
Adjunct professor Ruobing Dong is one of the world’s leading young astrophysicists in exoplanet science and has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of planetary origins. He explores how planets form around young stars by studying the signatures of planet formation in their birth cradles. By pioneering a blend of cutting-edge observations, numerical simulations and machine learning, he uniquely bridges the theoretical and observational communities, significantly advancing the field of planet formation.
Tom Gleeson (SEOS)
Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars
Tom Gleeson is a deeply interdisciplinary and collaborative scholar of groundwater science. He is committed to bridging the gaps between scientific research, resource management and community engagement, with a focus on groundwater sustainability and environmental justice.
Caren Helbing (BCMB)
Fellow, North American Society for Comparative Endocrinology
Caren Helbing investigates biomolecules to understand and promote animal environmental and human health. She investigates the molecular basis of thyroid hormone action and its disruption by environmental contaminants, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, is developing an antimicrobial peptide discovery platform to combat antimicrobial resistant pathogens and is a pioneer in environmental DNA methods. Helbing was elected as a Fellow of the North American Society for Comparative Endocrinology for significant, independent contributions to the advancement of comparative endocrinology.
Read about Helbing’s recent eDNA project
Dennis Hore (CHEM)
Academic of the Year, CUFA BC
Dennis Hore received the Ehor Boyanowsky Academic of the Year Award from CUFA BC alongside School of Social Work professor Bruce Wallace for their groundbreaking project Substance UVic. This initiative developed a drug-checking program to address BC’s toxic drug crisis. The program created innovative public health responses using drug-checking technologies integrated with harm reduction strategies, and has had a direct impact on community health and safety in BC.
Watch an interview with Dennis Hore v
Violeta Iosub (CHEM)
Award for Inclusive and Innovative Course Design – REACH Awards
Violeta Iosub is a dedicated chemistry instructor who masterfully engages large class sizes with her dynamic teaching methods. She's constantly evolving her classes to meet curriculum goals and integrate evidence-based practices. With a molecular augmented reality app for 3D visualization, Iosub takes her students on an immersive journey into the world of chemistry. She crafts inclusive learning activities, encouraging peer-to-peer instruction and leverages a variety of modalities in Brightspace, with recorded lectures and weekly forum questions. Violeta’s courses are a model for inclusive teaching practice, scaffolding learning and providing alternative ways for students to showcase their knowledge.
Francis Juanes (BIOL)
American Fisheries Society Award of Excellence
Juanes is a fisheries ecologist whose work has advanced ecological theory and filled significant gaps for management agencies internationally. His team’s work has been pivotal in quantifying how individuals, populations and communities respond to environmental and anthropogenic changes. The Award of Excellence is the American Fisheries Society’s highest award for scientific achievement and recognizes original and outstanding scientific contributions in the fields of fisheries and aquatic biology.
Read more about Francis Juanes
David Leitch (CHEM)
Killam Fellowship
Keith Fagnou Award from the Chemical Society of Canada
Early Career Award for Excellence in Research – REACH Awards
David Leitch is a self-described chemical cartographer. His research group strives to map chemical space, increasing our understanding of the mechanisms behind chemical reactions, developing new catalysts and catalytic methods and making quantitative predictions about reactivity. Leitch received the Dorothy Killam Fellowship, which recognizes leading researchers whose superior, ground-breaking and transformative research stands to positively improve the lives of Canadians. He also received the 2025 Keith Fagnou Award from the Chemical Society of Canada, which recognizes early career researchers who have made a distinguished contribution to organic chemistry while working in Canada.
Mark Lewis (BIOL/MATH)
Royal Society (UK)
Akira Okubo prize
Mark Lewis is a mathematical ecologist who has spent his career using math to enhance environmental stewardship. His ground-breaking research has solved long-standing mathematical questions that are fundamental to ecology, and has helped to reveal how the natural world works and the impacts of our human activity on nature, changing policies and regulations along the way. Lewis received the Akira Okubo prize, which honours a senior scientist for outstanding and innovative theoretical work, for establishing superb conceptual ideas, for solving tough theoretical problems and/or for uniting theory and data to advance a biological subject. He was also elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences.
Brad Nelson (BCMB)
Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
Brad Nelson’s research focuses on deciphering and engineering the immune response to cancer, with an emphasis on gynecological and lymphoid cancers. He has used advanced genomic and imaging tools to understand how lymphocytes collaborate to recognize and attack human tumours. In parallel, he has co-led innovative clinical trials of genetically engineered cell therapies that seek to transform patient outcomes while ensuring accessibility and affordability within Canada’s public healthcare system. Nelson was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada.
Tom Reimchen (BIOL)
Editors Choice for Best Paper, Canadian Journal of Zoology
Tom Reimchen’s research has two major themes: the importance of genetic variability in natural populations and the influence of marine-derived nutrients to forest productivity and biodiversity. His August 2024 paper, Gastropod shell differentiation following colonization of an invasive intertidal macrophyte in Atlantic Canada, was selected as Editors Choice for Best Paper.
Makhsud Saidaminov (CHEM)
Excellence in Research Partnerships Award – REACH Awards
Makhsud Saidaminov, a Canada Research Chair in Advanced Functional Materials, studies the chemistry and physics of various materials for potential applications in solar cells and optoelectronics. Partnering with Dr. Sahar Sam, CEO of Solaires Inc., Makhsud has co-developed Solar Ink™ and PVModules™, Canada’s first commercially available perovskite photovoltaic modules (advanced solar panels). Their innovative research has been supported by multiple NSERC Alliance Mitacs grants and has led to four patents, 12 peer-reviewed publications and the training of 18 emerging scientists.
Min Tsao (MATH)
Canadian Journal of Statistics Award
Min Tsao is a statistician who works on regression models. He was awarded the Canadian Journal of Statistics Award to recognize his outstanding paper, Regression Model Selection via Log-Likelihood Ratio and Constrained Minimum Criterion. According to the journal, the paper was “an excellent presentation of an impressive methodological development in regression model selection.”
Kim Venn (PHYS)
Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision and Mentorship – REACH Awards
Kim Venn attracts students into science and engineering through astronomy. Her graduate courses are popular, her research students are successful, and she created a nation-wide graduate training program on New Technologies for Canadian Observatories (NTCO) that included academic, government and industrial environments. She thrives on gathering a diverse community of experts to maximize creativity and opportunities for students. The Astronomy Research Centre (ARC) has increased publicity, collaboration and mentorship for UVic graduate students both locally and nationally under her direction over the past decade.