Vancouver Institute

MATHEMATICS AND THE BATTLE AGAINST INFECTIOUS DISEASE

When: Where: P.A. Woodward Instructional Resources Centre, UBC’s Point Grey Campus, 2194 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver.

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Caroline Colijn

Professor and Canada 150 Research Chair in Mathematics for Evolution, Infection, and Public Health, Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University

Dr. Colijn’s interdisciplinary research bridges mathematics, statistics, genomics, evolution, and epidemiology to unravel how infectious diseases spread and evolve, especially through the development of innovative phylogenetic modelling tools. During the COVID‑19 pandemic, she secured a Genome BC grant to develop a statistical tool to map the spread of the virus in British Columbia and served on Canada’s federal COVID‑19 expert panel. Dr. Colijn was a member of the BC COVID-19 Modelling Group and Canada’s Chief Science Advisor’s expert panel on COVID-19.

Honoured as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2023, Dr. Colijn leads the Mathematics, Genomics and Prediction in Infection and Evolution (MAGPIE) group at SFU’s Department of Mathematics.

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THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP FOR CANCER SURVIVORSHIP

Dr. Sheila Garland’s research has significantly advanced interventions to support cancer survivors’ quality of life and recovery. Her clinical practice and research bridge psychology, oncology, and sleep medicine, with a focus on how poor sleep affects cancer recovery and how evidence-based interventions can improve sleep and related symptoms.

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SURVIVING VANCOUVER

Mr. Michael Kluckner is a celebrated Vancouver-based artist, writer, historian, and illustrator whose work bridges urban heritage and graphic storytelling. Author of over twenty books, including Vancouver: The Way It Was (1984), Vanishing Vancouver (1990), and Surviving Vancouver (2024), his watercolors and sumi-e paintings capture the city’s changing face.