Graduate

Further program information is available below:

• Graduate Research Opportunities

Our department has 25 faculty members and emphasizes excellence in a small number of specialties. The department benefits greatly from its proximity to a number of outstanding government laboratories where many adjunct faculty are also involved in our graduate programs: NRC Herzberg, TRIUMF, Vancouver Island Cancer Centre, Institute of Ocean Sciences, Pacific Geoscience Centre, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis.

The graduate program in Physics and Astronomy is structured so that students are fully engaged in research by the end of their first year of courses. Financial aid is available in the form of scholarships, teaching assistantships and grant-funded research assistantships.

Our faculty members have won prestigious Killam, Steacie, Leverhulme, Reinhardt, Guggenheim and Sloan Foundation Fellowships. The department also currently hosts 1 CRC Chair and a CIfAR scholar. Other major prizes include the Annie Jump Cannon award (American Astronomical Society), PECASE and CAREER awards (National Science Foundation). The Faculty of Science Excellence in Research award has been awarded to our professors 6 times in the last 10 years.

The University of Victoria is the second largest NSERC astronomy grantee in Canada worth over half a million dollars annually. Individual large CFI grants totalling a further half a million dollars have been used to develop an astronomical instrumentation laboratory and high performance computing cluster.

Our graduate students are very successful in securing faculty positions in Physics and/or Astronomy. Graduate students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy have also been awarded numerous provincial and national awards, including regular receipt of NSERC doctoral awards. Some recent special prizes include:

• Patrick deNiverville (PhD 2016) [recipient of the 2017/18 CAP PPD Thesis Award for best Canadian PhD thesis in particle physics], Postdoctoral Fellow, IBS Daejon
• Andy Pon (PhD 2014) [recipient of the 2014 Plaskett medal awarded by CASCA for best Canadian PhD thesis and the 2014 Governor General's gold medal], Software Developer, 3vGeomatics, Vancouver
• Helen Kirk (PhD 2010) [recipient of the 2010 Plaskett medal awarded by CASCA for best Canadian PhD thesis], Research Officer, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre
• Greg Poole (PhD 2007) [recipient of the 2007 Governor General's gold medal], Astronomy Data and Computing Services (ADACS) Project Scientist with Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University, Australia
• Brigitte Vachon (PhD 2004) [recipient of the 2004 Governor General's gold medal], Associate Professor, McGill University
• Steve Robertson (PhD 1999) [recipient of the 1999 Governor General's gold medal], Research Scientist, Institute of Particle Physics (IPP) and Associate Professor, McGill University

Below are some examples of our graduate almuni:

• Trystyn Berg (PhD 2018), European Southern Observatory (ESO) Fellow, Chile
• Douglas Storey (PhD 2018), Postdoctoral Research Scholar, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
• Samantha Van Nest (PhD 2018) Postdoctoral Fellow at Weill Cornell Medical College
• Allison Elliot (PhD 2017), Postdoctoral Fellow, Queen Mary University of London
• Matthias Le Dall (PhD 2017), Data Scientist, Scotia Bank
• Azadeh Fattahi Savadjani (PhD 2017), Postdoctoral Fellow, Durham University, UK
• Ewan Hill (PhD 2017), Postdoctoral Fellow, University of British Columbia
• Tony Kwan (PhD 2017), Postdoctoral Fellow, McGill University
• Matthew LeBlanc (PhD 2017), Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Arizona, Tucson
• Kyle Oman (PhD 2017), Postdoctoral Fellow, Groningen University, Netherlands
• Claire David (PhD 2016), Postdoctoral Fellow, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg
• Patrick deNiverville (PhD 2016), Postdoctoral Fellow, IBS Daejon
• Mara Johnson-Groh (MSc 2016), NASA Science Writer, Goddard Space Flight Center
• Paul Kovacs (MSc 2016), Programmer Analyst, Civil Engineering Department, UVic
• Jordan Myslik (PhD 2016), Postdoctoral Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• James Pearce (PhD 2015), Data Scientist, Amazon 9
• Eric Ouellette (PhD 2014), Actuarial Analyst, Morneau Shepell
• Jillian Scudder (PhD 2014), Faculty, Oberlin College and Conservatory
• Frank Berghaus (PhD 2013), Scientist Cloud Developer, UVic HEP group
• Casey Bojechko (PhD 2013), Assistant Clinical Professor, University of California San Diego Department of Radiation Medicine and Applied Sciences
• Ryan Leaman (PhD 2012), Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
• Jean-Raphaël Lessard (PhD 2012), Risk Manager, Polar Asset Management Partners, Toronto
• Quinn Matthews (PhD 2012), Medical Physicist at BC Cancer Agency, Prince George
• Michael Palmer (MSc 2012), Predictive Analytics Researcher, Green Power Labs
• Lorraine Courneyea (PhD 2011), Clinical Assistant Professor, Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto
• Tayfun Ince (PhD 2010), Senior Data Scientist, Booking.com, Amsterdam
• Karl Bush (PhD 2009), Faculty member, Stanford School of Medicine
• Aaron Ludlow (PhD 2009), Senior Researcher, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)
• Nikola Milutinovic (MSc 2009), Scientific Engineer, Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory
• Brian York (MSc 2008), Research Analyst, Space Telescope Science Institute
• Chris Bildfell (MSc 2007), Lead Data Scientist, Shopify, Ottawa
• Joshua LaForge (MSc 2007), Process Engineer, Intel Corporation
• Jon Geehan (MSc 2005), High School teacher, Victoria High, Greater Victoria School District
• Andreea Font (PhD 2005), Senior Lecturer, Astrophysics Research Institute at Liverpool John Moores University
• Ian McCarthy (PhD 2005), Reader at the Astrophysics Research Institute at Liverpool John Moores University, UK
• Eric Hayashi (PhD 2004), Software Engineer, Google
• Paul Jackson (PhD 2004), Associate Professor, University of Adelaide
• Matt Dobbs (PhD 2002), Associate Professor, McGill University and Senior Fellow (CIfAR). Dr Dobbs was awarded the Canadian Association of Physicists Herzberg Medal in 2014
• James Taylor (PhD 2002), Associate Professor, University of Waterloo
• Kevin Graham (PhD 2001), Associate Professor, Carleton University
• Dugan O'Neil (PhD 2000), Professor, Simon Fraser University (Currently SFU's Associate Vice-President, Research)
• Michael Balogh (PhD 1999), past PPARC Fellow, Professor, Associate Chair University of Waterloo. 
• Dave Patton (PhD 1999), Chair, Department of Physics & Astronomy, Trent University
• Frans Pretorius (MSc 1996), Sloan Fellow, CIFAR scholar and Professor at Princeton
• Luc Simard (PhD 1996), Director, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre 
• Manuella Vincter (PhD 1996), Professor, Carleton University, FRSC
• Leopoldo Infante (PhD 1990), previous Director of the Department of Astronomy and now Director of Astro-Engineering, Universidad Catolica in Santiago, Chile
• Stephen Holland (BSc 1989), Research scientist, NASA Goddard Spaceflight Centre
• Judith Irwin (MSc 1978), Professor, Queens' University and author of the successful textbook "Astrophysics - Decoding the Cosmos"