Welcoming our newest faculty members
Over the last year, we’ve welcomed fourteen new faculty, celebrated the promotions of ten, and said goodbye to four as they headed off into retirement.
Get to know the changes around the Faculty of Science!
New faculty members
Benjamin Anderson-Sackaney
Assistant professor, mathematics and statistics
Benjamin Anderson-Sackaney is a pure mathematician whose interests are among operator algebras and quantum groups. He is originally from north-eastern Ontario and finds the rocky landscape on the island reminiscent of home. Some things he enjoys in his personal time are seeing friends and family, long distance running, reading, beading, and video games.
Catherine Bachewich
Associate teaching professor, biochemistry and microbiology
Catherine Bachewich has over twenty years of experience in research, teaching, and administration at the post-secondary level and specializes in the areas of fungal biology and pathogenesis. For thirteen years, she was a faculty member in the Department of Biology at Concordia University. Her research program explored the regulation of cell proliferation and development in Candida albicans, one of the most common fungal pathogens of humans, with the aim of identifying potential new drug targets for controlling fungal growth. Since a family move to B.C., she has taught at UVic as a sessional instructor and helped administer a provincial research infrastructure grant program for the Government of British Columbia.
Thomas Blake
Associate professor, physics and astronomy
Thomas Blake researches experimental particle physics, and is a member of the Victoria Subatomic Particle and Accelerator (VISPA) research centre. He has previously worked at CERN on the LHCb experiment and has recently joined the Belle II experiment in Japan. His interest in both experiments is in looking for a breakdown in our understanding of particle interactions on the sub-atomic scale by making precise measurements of very rare particle decay processes. Prior to joining UVic, Blake held a faculty position at the University of Warwick in the UK.
Casey Brant
Associate teaching professor, earth and ocean sciences
Casey Brant completed her PhD at UVic, then spent over 10 years teaching geoscience classes around Vancouver Island. When she was not teaching, she worked as a professional mariner. Her experiences as a boat captain working in communities along the BC coast eventually led her to complete an MA at Royal Roads University, where she studied the interactions between the extractive industries and coastal first nations. She attributes her need to look at things holistically and find and explore connections to the Kanyen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) side of her family. In her new role at UVic she will be teaching and will serve as captain of the Faculty of Science research vessel, the John Strickland.
Saurabh Chitnis
Associate professor, chemistry
Saurabh Chitnis is a synthetic organic chemist whose research explores new types of inorganic polymers and materials for applications in green technologies and new concepts in metal coordination chemistry for making chemical synthesis more efficient. His lab is providing fundamental insights and practical solutions to accelerate our transition to a net-zero emissions future. Chitnis comes to UVic from Dalhousie, where he was an associate professor. He obtained his PhD from UVic, and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Bristol and the University of Toronto.
Nicolette Fonseca
Assistant professor, biochemistry and microbiology and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in systems approaches to cancer biology
Based at the Deeley Research Centre, Nicolette Fonseca studies the immune microenvironment of prostate tumors with specific genetic dependencies to uncover why prostate cancer remains largely resistant to immunotherapy. Using genomic profiling and spatial imaging of patient samples, her research investigates how aggressive tumors evade immune detection. Her long-term goal is to identify immunogenomic biomarkers that can guide the selection of patients most likely to benefit from immunotherapy in advanced prostate cancer.
Ryland Giebelhaus
Assistant professor, chemistry
Ryland Giebelhaus uses multidimensional separations, namely comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography (LC×LC-MS), for untargeted metabolomics. He is interested in developing enabling data tools for LC×LC-MS and in applying LC×LC-MS to answer a number of biological questions. Currently, he is interested in pesticide and herbicide exposure in humans and ecosystems, and exploring adulteration in natural products and foods. He completed his PhD in chemistry at the University of Alberta (UofA) and his BSc (Honours) at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.
Jaime Grimm
Lecturer, biology
Jaime Grimm has a research focus on sustainable and Indigenous-led fisheries. Prior to joining the UVic community, Jaime pursued her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, and a Masters in Biology at McGill University. She also spent a number of years working in the non-profit space at Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. Having been born and raised on the west coast, Jaime is thrilled to be returning home to continue her research on marine fisheries. Outside of research, Jaime is an avid knitter, beader and hiker.
Tasha Jarisz
Assistant teaching professor, chemistry
Born and raised in Victoria, BC, Tasha Jarisz has always had the ocean breeze and mountain views as her backdrop. She earned her PhD in physical chemistry here at UVic, where she also completed the Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LATHE) program. As a proud alum of UVic Women in Science, she’s passionate about inspiring curiosity and building community in STEM. In her free time, you’ll probably find her pedaling along local trails, dancing like no one’s watching, or experimenting in the kitchen—because chemistry isn’t just for the lab!
Nelson Lam
Assistant professor, chemistry
Nelson Lam is developing catalytic strategies for the selective functionalization of ubiquitous functional groups such as alcohols and amines. He is motivated by current deficiencies in organic synthesis and is especially interested in developing selective variants of “bread and butter” chemical transformations. Lam completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Auckland before pursuing his PhD at the University of Cambridge.
Aditya Mojumdar
Assistant teaching professor, biochemistry and microbiology
Aditya Mojumdar has been a sessional instructor and senior research associate at UVic since 2022. He completed his PhD at the University of Trieste in Italy, and has an MSc from Uppsala University in Sweden. His teaching interests include DNA replication and repair, genome organization, yeast genetics and biotechnology. His research focuses on studying the mechanisms that play a role in maintaining our genomic integrity and how these mechanisms go berserk with aging in cancer cells.
Jesse Mumford
Assistant professor, physics and astronomy
Jesse Mumford grew up in Terrace, B.C., where an inspiring high school teacher first sparked his passion for physics. He went on to complete his undergraduate degree at UBC and his Ph.D. at McMaster University, followed by research positions in Poland and Oklahoma focused on theoretical quantum physics. Now back in B.C., happy to be surrounded by the mountains and ocean, Jesse hopes to share that same inspiration with the students at UVic. His research uses atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) systems as versatile platforms to understand complex behaviours such as quantum chaos, dynamical and equilibrium phase transitions and the emergence of complexity.
Heather Russell
Assistant professor, physics and astronomy and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in experimental physics and the subatomic frontier
Heather Russell isn’t new to UVic, but she is new to her role as a Canada Research Chair. Her research in experimental particle physics aims to understand the composition of the universe at the smallest possible scale, in hopes of answering some of the biggest unsolved mysteries in physics: what is dark matter, and why do we live in a matter-dominated universe? As a member of the multi-national ATLAS collaboration, she studies rare particle interactions and contributes to the custom software that enables analysis of billions of proton collision events. She is also currently playing a leading role in the MATHUSLA experiment, a newly-proposed particle detector aimed at filling a gap in the current LHC physics program.
Dominique Trischuk
Assistant professor, physics and astronomy
Dominique Trischuk is an experiment particle physicist who received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto and her PhD from the University of British Columbia. She has been working on the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN since 2016. Her research focuses on new-physics searches beyond the Standard Model, including searches for long-lived particles, and the development of next-generation silicon tracking detectors.
Promotions
The following faculty members received promotions, effective July 1, 2025.
- Gautam Awatramani (BIOL) was promoted to Professor
- Juergen Ehlting (BIOL) was promoted to Professor
- Colin Goldblatt (SEOS) was promoted to Professor
- Trefor Bazett (MATH) was promoted to Associate Teaching Professor with tenure
- Ryan Gawryluk (BIOL) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
- Michelle Miranda (MATH) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
- Natasha Morrison (MATH) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
- Jonathan Noel (MATH) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
- Makhsud Saidaminov (CHEM) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
- Stephen Scully (MATH) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
Retirements
We said goodbye to four faculty members this year, as they headed off into retirement.
- Ben Koop (BIOL)
- Partick von Aderkas (BIOL)
- Peter Wan (CHEM)
- Jane Ye (MATH)