Faculty Position: Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cultures & Ecosystem at Risk

Posted on June 18, 2025

Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cultures & Ecosystem at Risk – University of British Columbia

The Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) is recruiting a Leading Edge Endowment Fund (LEEF) Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk, a senior appointment at the advanced associate or full professor rank targeted at a world-leading ecosystem scientist. The LEEF is a multi-million-dollar endowment created by the Government of British Columbia (BC) to assist a total of 20 permanent BC Leadership Research Chairs at research universities throughout the province. The LEEF Chairs are designed to attract world-class faculty, strengthen British Columbia’s capacity for innovative research and position the province as a leader in the knowledge-based economy. A faculty appointment at UBC is subject to university approvals and will be contingent on approval by Innovation BC.

The appointee to the LEEF Chair will be nominated for the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC). The CERC program, Canada’s highest research chair appointment, is designed to attract and support world-renowned researchers and their teams to Canada. The CERC nomination is subject to review and final approval by the CERC Secretariat. The CERC award, if successful, provides for $500,000 per year for eight years.

This appointment presents a unique opportunity for a leading researcher focused on understanding and forecasting the impacts of global environmental change on species and ecosystems at risk. The successful candidate will lead a research team focused on the development and implementation of methods to enhance informed, adaptive management decisions for conservation, forestry, and/or ecosystems. Competitive candidates will bring expertise in their domain knowledge (e.g., dendrochronology, population and community ecology, ecophysiology, ecosystem science), advanced skills in data fusion and mixed methods, and importantly, their experience in translation of knowledge and collaboration with local communities. We envision that the successful candidate will establish connections within ecosystem management in British Columbia, engage with Indigenous groups, industry, government, and other community organizations, and collaborate to develop solutions for ecosystems at risk. The CERC nomination reflects the urgent need for Canada to enhance its leadership role in addressing the deepening crisis of climate change, with a focus on ecosystem science. This CERC position aligns with federal Science, Technology, and Innovation Priorities in “Clean, Sustainable and Prosperous Canada” and “Technologically Advanced Canada”; expertise in one or more of the published priority areas will be given preference (https://www.cerc.gc.ca/program-programme/priority_areas-domaines_prioritaires-eng.aspx).

UBC as a leader

The University of British Columbia (UBC) is consistently ranked among the top 20 public universities in the world and is a renowned global centre for teaching, learning and research. Since 1915, UBC has been opening doors of opportunity for people with the curiosity, drive, and vision to shape a better world. Today, our students, faculty, and staff come from around the world, and our international research partnerships and publications help us collaborate on a global scale. UBC is proud to nurture and transform the lives of more than 65,000 students from Canada and over 140 countries worldwide.

UBC has world-class research strength in ecology, biogeography, forestry, and climate change science, and consistently ranks as the #1 university in Canada and in the top 15 globally for Geography, Ecology, and Environmental Sciences. Of note, multiple centres on campus focus on biodiversity, climate change science, and climate policy, including the Biodiversity Research Centre, the Centre for Climate Justice, the Climate Solutions Research Collective, and the Interdisciplinary Biodiversity Solutions Collaboratory. The UBC Department of Geography is one of the most academically diverse and productive departments of its kind in the world, encompassing a wide range of disciplines and subdisciplines, from economic geography to political ecology, atmospheric science, and ecology, representing a unique interface between the natural and social sciences. The department and university will provide the appointee with a broad intellectual context and cutting-edge tools to explore interdisciplinary research questions.

The successful candidate will:

have a PhD (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline as part of the UBC requirement;
be an internationally recognized leader of an impactful research program with interdisciplinary reach, preferably with at least 10 years of post-PhD research experience in ecosystem science and/or forecasting global change impacts on species and ecosystems at risk;
have demonstrated excellent leadership capacity in research and teaching that is creative, innovative, and collaboration-based;
have a strong commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion and to creating a welcoming community where those who are historically, persistently, or systemically marginalized are treated equitably, feel respected, and belong. UBC recognizes that inclusion is built through individual and institutional responsibility, achieved by continuous engagement with diversity, to inspire people, ideas, and actions for a better world. As Canada’s highest research chair appointees, UBC CERCs will have a unique and profound impact on our commitments to these values;
lead a strong, externally-funded research program to supervise graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral fellows, collaborate with other faculty members, and actively participate in teaching and service to the Department, University, and academic/scientific community.

The CERC nomination is subject to review and final approval by the CERC Secretariat

The appointee will serve as a tenured faculty member in the Department of Geography. It is expected the appointee must be Full Professors or Senior Associate Professors who are expected to be promoted to Full Professor within one or two years of nomination. Appointees from outside the academic sector must possess the qualifications necessary to be appointed at these levels. The anticipated start date will be July 1, 2026, or a date to be mutually agreed upon within 12 months after the notice of the award in Spring 2027 provided that all parties have signed acceptance. The expected pay range for this position is $16,667-$20,833/month. The salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience and is subject to final budgetary approval. Competitive start-up packages, relocation, and housing assistance will be provided. For CERC awardees, substantial infrastructure funds are available through the John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF).

Please note: The start date of the LEEF Chair is July 1, 2026. The successful applicant will be required to prepare a CERC package by January 12, 2026, UBC’s internal deadline for the March 1, 2026 CERC deadline. The earliest anticipated start date for the CERC is April 1, 2027.

Program nominees are not restricted by their nationality or their country of residence. Non-Canadian Chairholders may work in Canada under the procedures of Employment and Social Development Canada and Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada. In some cases, a work permit may be expedited.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence

UBC hires based on merit and is committed to employment equity. Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. Inclusion is built through individual and institutional responsibility, achieved by continuous engagement with diversity, to inspire people, ideas, and actions for a better world. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Metis, Inuit, or Indigenous person.

We also encourage applicants for the CERC position to complete the https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cUvl7PKtt6aSW6W in alignment with the institution’s commitment to creating an equitable and diverse environment that fosters academic excellence. Personal information is collected under the authority of sections 26(a), 26(c), and 26(e) of the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The Equity & Inclusion Office will collect data, and all responses will be stored in a secure database. The information collected will be for program-level reporting.

UBC is committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive, non-discriminatory, and accessible work environment for all members of its workforce. UBC is also committed to ensuring that the application and interview process is accessible to all applicants. If you require accommodations or have questions about UBC benefits, services, or accommodations policies, please contact Sue Lebrun at sue.lebrun@ubc.ca in Workplace Health Services and also please visit UBC’s Center for Workplace Accessibility website at https://hr.ubc.ca/health-and-wellbeing/workplace-accessibility/centre-workplace-accessibility

The UBC Vancouver campus is situated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. UBC is dedicated to being a world leader in the implementation of Indigenous people’s human rights and is guided by a mission of reconciliation as articulated and called for by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. It is firmly committed to recruiting Indigenous faculty, students, and staff as outlined in its Indigenous Strategic Plan. As one of the world’s leading universities, UBC creates an exceptional learning and research environment that fosters global citizenship and advances a civil and sustainable society to serve the people of British Columbia, Canada, and the world.

UBC recognizes the legitimate impact that leaves (e.g., maternity leave, parental leave, leaves due to illness, leaves due to caring for family members, slowdowns due to chronic illness or disability, or COVID-19 impacts) can have on research achievement and commits to ensuring that leaves are taken into careful consideration during the assessment process. Candidates are encouraged to highlight in their application how career interruptions and personal circumstances have had an impact on their careers.

To apply:

Interested candidates must follow the application instructions at https://geog.air.arts.ubc.ca/position-000198210. Complete applications will include a detailed curriculum vitae, a two-page research statement, a two-page teaching statement, a two-page equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) statement, and the names and contact information of three references. As part of the application process, applicants will be asked to complete a voluntary employment equity survey.

Review of applications will begin on July 21, 2025.

Gaia’s Web: How Digital Environmentalism Can Combat Climate Change, Restore Biodiversity, Cultivate Empathy, and Regenerate the Earth

At the uncanny edge of the scientific frontier, Gaia’s Web explores the promise and pitfalls the Digital Age holds for the future of our planet. A new generation of innovators is deploying digital and biological technologies to come to the aid of the planet, but will they end up doing more harm than good? Combining insights from computer science, ecology, engineering, environmental science, and environmental law, Gaia’s Web introduces profoundly novel ways of addressing our most pressing environmental challenges—mitigating climate change, protecting endangered species—and creating new possibilities for ecological justice by empowering nonhumans to participate in environmental regulation.

Author Karen Bakker passed away in August 2023, shortly after finishing this book. Gaia’s Web is part of what Karen conceived as a trilogy exploring how biological and digital technologies could bring more empathy with nature, help regenerate our damaged planet, and give greater agency to our fellow earthlings. In the award-winning first volume, The Sounds of Life, Karen beautifully narrates the hidden realm of nature’s sounds and the transformative power of digital technologies to connect us with other species. In this second book, Gaia’s Web, insightfully engages with the promises and conundrums of emerging bio-digital technologies. Sadly, Karen did not get a chance to write her final volume on a new political future, in which humans co-govern rather than dominate Earth, but she leaves behind an extensive and insightful legacy of works, and a message of love and hope.

Publication date: April 16th, 2024

Published by MIT Press

Remembering Karen Bakker

The Canadian Mountain Assessment

Co-authored by Michele Koppes, Nina Hewitt and others, The Canadian Mountain Assessment provides a first-of-its-kind look at what we know, do not know, and need to know about mountain systems in Canada. The assessment is based on insights from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit knowledges of mountains, as well as findings from an extensive assessment of pertinent academic literature. Its inclusive knowledge co-creation approach brings these multiple forms of evidence together in ways that enhance our collective understanding of mountains in Canada, while also respecting and maintaining the integrity of different knowledge systems.

The Canadian Mountain Assessment is a text-based document, but also includes a variety of visual materials as well as access to video recordings of oral knowledges shared by Indigenous individuals from mountain areas in Canada. The assessment is the result of over three years of work, during which time the initiative played an important role in connecting and cultivating relationships between mountain knowledge holders from across Canada. It is the outcome of contributions from more than 80 Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals and contains six chapters.

The book aims to enhance appreciation for the diversity and significance of mountains in Canada, to clarify challenges and opportunities for mountain systems in the country, and to motivate and inform new research, relationships, and actions that support the realization of desirable mountain futures. More broadly, the publication provides insights into applied reconciliation efforts in a knowledge assessment context and seeks to inspire similar knowledge co-creation efforts in and beyond Canada.

Publication date: November 2023

Published by University of Calgary Press

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World

What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against?

Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us—and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror.

Publication date: September 12th, 2023

Published by Macmillan

Variegated Economies

The culmination of more than two decades of work on the spatiality of economic forms, worlds, and lives, Variegated Economies tackles the question of how to approach, conceptualize, and analyze economies as geographically differentiated phenomena. Staged from the field of economic geography, the book seeks to build bridges to complementary developments in critical political economy and heterodox economic studies by way of a substantive theoretical and methodological program. Jamie Peck advances a series of arguments concerning the inherent-and highly consequential-spatiality of economic forms, worlds, and lives, engaging a range of issues from the diversity of capitalism(s) to the dynamics of late-stage neoliberalization, and from the problematic uneven geographical development to the challenges-cum-opportunities of conjunctural methodologies.

Publication date: July 25th, 2023

Published by Oxford University Press

The Planetary Gentrification Reader

Gentrification is a global process that the United Nations now sees as a human rights issue. This new Planetary Gentrification Reader follows on from the editors’ 2010 volume, The Gentrification Reader, and provides a more longitudinal (backward and forward in time) and broader (turning away from Anglo-/Euro-American hegemony) sense of developments in gentrification studies over time and space, drawing on key readings that reflect the development of cutting-edge debates.

Revisiting new debates over the histories of gentrification, thinking through comparative urbanism on gentrification, considering new waves and types of gentrification, and giving much more focus to resistance to gentrification, this is a stellar collection of writings on this critical issue.

Like in their 2010 Reader, the editors, who are internationally renowned experts in the field, include insightful commentary and suggested further reading. The book is essential reading for students and researchers in urban studies, urban planning, human geography, sociology, and housing studies and for those seeking to fight this socially unjust process.

Publication date: December 30th, 2022

Published by Routledge

The Sounds of Life

Selected as one of Malcolm Gladwell’s Next Big Idea Club nominees in October 2022

NPR Science Friday Book Club Book of the Month, November 2022

“Thoughtful and rigorous…meticulously researched and colorfully presented…in a way that is accessible to non-experts. A wonderful mix of animal ecology, narratives of science-doing, futurism, and accounts of Indigenous knowledge that is as interdisciplinary as the field itself.” – Science

The natural world teems with remarkable conversations, many beyond human hearing range. Groundbreaking scientists are using novel digital technologies to uncover these astonishing sounds, revealing vibrant communication among our fellow creatures across the Tree of Life.

At once meditative and scientific, The Sounds of Life shares fascinating and surprising stories of nonhuman sound, interweaving insights from technological innovation and traditional knowledge. We meet scientists using sound to protect and regenerate endangered species from the Great Barrier Reef to the Arctic and the Amazon. We discover the shocking impacts of noise pollution on both animals and plants. We learn how artificial intelligence can decode nonhuman sounds, and meet the researchers building dictionaries in East African Elephant and Sperm Whalish. At the frontiers of innovation, we explore digitally mediated dialogues with bats and honeybees. Technology often distracts us from nature, but what if it could reconnect us instead?

The Sounds of Life offers hope for environmental conservation and affirms humanity’s relationship with nature in the digital age after learning about the unsuspected wonders of nature’s sounds.

Publication date: October 18th 2022

Visit book website

Climate Resources

Douglas Robb, PhD Candidate

Douglas Robb is a PhD candidate at UBC Geography.

His research focuses on Canada’s transition to a low-carbon future, and how that relates to water governance.

Can you tell us a little about your research?

My research broadly explores the intersection of landscape architecture and human geography. Currently, my PhD focuses on the political ecology of decarbonization in Canada through an analysis of landscapes of hydropower and hydraulic fracturing in northeastern British Columbia, specifically the areas impacted by the Site C Dam.

How does your research relate to climate change, and why is that connection important?

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted Canadians to re-evaluate fundamental aspects of everyday life. We are increasingly told that our current historical moment offers an unprecedented opportunity to “build back better”; in other words, to envision a more just and sustainable society centred on decarbonization and climate justice. These goals are important, urgent, and necessary, and I believe that we can observe their convergence most vividly in contemporary debates surrounding the future of energy in Canada.

Why does working on climate change feel important to you?

All Canadians are implicated in debates over the future of energy, from landscape-scale infrastructure projects to the digital devices that increasingly mediate how we learn, work, and socialize. As a landscape architect and a geographer, I believe these debates present a valuable opportunity to re-evaluate the political, cultural, and social processes that underpin our relationships to energy resources, and to consider more just and sustainable pathways forward.

The Peace River at the Site C Dam. Courtesy of Douglas Robb.

What’s one thing you wish more people knew about your area of research?

Northeastern British Columbia is often considered “peripheral” by southern Canadians; I have met very few people who have had the opportunity to travel up to the Peace River country. And yet Canada’s northern landscapes are being transformed—some would say sacrificed—in pursuit of large-scale energy and resource projects. I wish more people knew how beautiful, fertile, and ecologically unique the Peace River region is. Perhaps that might prompt people to pause and reconsider—or work to reverse! —the drastic changes that have taken place there.

How do you hope your research will effect change?

My research is very closely connected to my teaching practice in landscape architecture. My goal is to introduce my students to nuanced natural resource debates, expand their energy and climate literacy, and help train a new generation of activist designers who are able to imagine, design, and construct more just and sustainable pathways to decarbonization.

Conversations about climate change always feel urgent, and sometimes the scale and nature of the crisis seem overwhelming. What have you learned or seen in your work that makes you feel hopeful about tackling climate change?

I think there is a tremendous amount of work to be done at multiple scales, from our everyday patterns and behaviours up to the highest levels of government and industry. At the individual level, I think it’s important to organize and apply political pressure. But it’s also important to recognize that tackling climate change is a complex and collective effort. When I feel overwhelmed, I’m encouraged by the excellent research and advocacy by students and faculty in the Geography Department and across many other faculties at UBC.

Courtesy of Douglas Robb

Angela Liu, BA Alumna

Angela Liu is an alumna of UBC Geography.

She completed her BA Environment and Sustainability in 2022, and is now pursuing an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at the University of Oxford

While at UBC, her research focused on how natural ecosystems can help to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Can you tell us a little about your research?

I worked on a Directed Studies project to study and quantify a select suite of ecosystem services provided by urban trees on the UBC Vancouver campus. These services are specifically aimed at mitigating climate change effects, and include carbon sequestration and storage, air pollution removal, and building energy reduction. I conducted fieldwork in the summer of 2020 and used a benefit assessment model to produce an estimation of the amount of carbon stored, air pollutants removed, and energy saved by buildings. I then used GIS to visualize the carbon storage potential geospatially and provide advice for future campus planning initiatives.

How does your research relate to climate change, and why is that connection important?

I studied ecosystem services particularly targeted at mitigating climate change effects because I think it is important for the university to invest more resources in the natural pathways of carbon removal to offset current emissions.

Why does working on climate change feel important to you?

The effect of climate change on urban centres, and its disproportionate impacts on vulnerable communities is a growing concern. Cities are predicted to continue increasing in population density, and conditions will continue to escalate if no pivotal action takes place. We need to provide communities with resilience-building tools and resources to protect the health and livelihoods of citizens. Ecosystem services provided by urban forests and urban biodiversity are a critical nature-based solution. I believe they are an important asset that city developers should invest in to create sustainable and healthy urban environments.

What’s one thing you wish more people knew about your area of research?

Everybody is familiar with the carbon storage potential of trees, which definitely provide an incredibly important terrestrial carbon sink; however, the other ecosystem services provided by urban forests are often undermined. Even my research only touches on a small selection of urban tree ecosystem services, and other properties such as stormwater filtration and their ability to improve mental well-being are not widely known.

How do you hope your research will effect change?

My research was a client-oriented study written for SEEDS and Campus + Community Planning at UBC, so the results will help inform UBC’s future urban forestry initiatives. I do hope to pursue my interests in graduate studies and eventually contribute knowledge to this field.

Are you involved in any climate advocacy?

I am currently an assistant policy analyst with the British Columbia Council for International Collaboration working on a briefing paper to inform key decision-makers within cities such as municipal councillors about ways to integrate climate justice into their climate action plans. I am also a research assistant for several faculty members in the Department of Geography to study different species responses to climate change.

I feel fortunate and quite privileged that I have so many resources and baseline studies to reference when constructing my research proposal and methodologies – which is indicative of the increasing awareness around issues such as urban ecosystem services and their climate change mitigation potential. I hope that alarmism doesn’t veil the positive steps forward by cities in their climate change responses and distort the complex literature behind climate change.

Faculty Position: Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cultures & Ecosystem at Risk

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