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Faculty of Science

Welcoming our newest faculty members in 2026

September 23, 2026

Every academic year comes with changes to our faculty complement. Over the last year, we’ve welcomed two new faculty members, celebrated the promotions of six, and said goodbye to two as they headed off into retirement.

Get to know the changes around the Faculty of Science!

New faculty members

Profile photo of Xiaomeng Ju

Xiaomeng Ju

Assistant professor, mathematics and statistics

Xiaomeng Ju is a statistician who develops methods for functional and tensor-valued data, including curves, surfaces, and multi-way arrays. Her recent work has a Bayesian focus and is motivated by applications in medical imaging. She is also interested in robust methods for data with outliers and in statistical machine learning. Before joining UVic, she was a postdoctoral fellow in Biostatistics at NYU School of Medicine, and she received her PhD in Statistics from the University of British Columbia.

Profile photo of Adrian Marchetti by the ocean

Adrian Marchetti

BC Leadership Chair in Marine Ecosystems and Global Change and Professor, Biology and Earth & Ocean Sciences

Marchetti is a biological oceanographer whose research focuses on phytoplankton ecophysiology and genomics. He studies how phytoplankton grow, compete and survive under different environmental conditions, looking to better understand the important roles that phytoplankton play in biogeochemical cycles. Marchetti combines traditional oceanographic methods with advanced methods in molecular sequencing and currently has research projects underway off the Pacific West Coast, in Antarctica and in the Galapagos. Marchetti is coming to UVic from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

Learn more about Adrian Marchetti

Promotions

The following faculty members received promotions, effective July 1, 2026:

  • Magdalena Bazalova-Carter (PHYS) was promoted to Professor
  • Rana El-Sabaawi (BIOL) was promoted to Professor
  • Arthur Blackburn (PHYS) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
  • Blake Dyer (SEOS) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
  • Greg Owens (BIOL) was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
  • David Punzalan (BIOL) was promoted to Associate Teaching Professor

Retirements

We said goodbye to two faculty members this year, as they headed off into retirement.

  • Mary Lesperance (MATH)
  • Ian Putnam (MATH)