Professors in Training Program

Dr. Ninan Abraham 
Professor, Departments of Microbiology & Immunology and Zoology

Dr. Ninan Abraham is a Professor in the UBC Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Department of Zoology and the former Associate Dean, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the UBC Faculty of Science. He has a track record in shifting academic culture using data-centred policy making and best practices. He pioneered use of disaggregated metrics in assessing gaps in faculty recruitment and correcting systemic biases, including racial and sex disparities in STEM. In the last 4 years, he has shifted his attention to health equity issues, serving as Director of EDI&I on a Canadian network of COVID researchers, CoVaRR-Net. This interdisciplinary network led to national collaboration on how researchers approach work with historically under-served communities and identified factors that shape trust amongst such communities. He has a unique perspective as an academic administrator effecting real change in a research-intensive environment.

Dr. Stefanie Blain-Moraes
Associate Professor, Department of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy and the School of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Stefanie Blain-Moraes is an Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Occupational Sciences and Occupational Therapy at the University of British Columbia.  She leads the Biosignal Interaction and Personhood Technology (BIAPT) Lab, which aims to develop technologies to assess consciousness and sustain relationships with minimally communicative persons. Broadly, her research focuses on: 1) developing tools to detect levels of and capacity for consciousness across altered states of consciousness (e.g., anesthesia, disorders of consciousness); and 2) creating technologies to support arts-based interactions (e.g., music, dance, therapeutic clowning) that build relationship and connection with minimally communitive persons.  Her research program has involved persons in disorders of consciousness and palliative care; adults with dementia, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; and children with autism and severe and multiple disabilities.  Her work has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Principal's Prize for Outstanding Emerging Researcher and membership in the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in the Royal Society of Canada, and has been featured in National Geographic, STAT news, the New Scientist and CTV National News.Dr. Blain-Moraes is also a dedicated teacher and mentor. Her students have received national and international recognition for their research and contributions to academia.  The excellence of Dr. Blain-Moraes’ teaching and training was recognized with the 2020 Faculty of Medicine Teaching Innovation Award from McGill University and by the 2023 Carrie M. Derrick Award for Graduate Teaching and Supervision.

Dr. Anna Blakney
Assistant Professor, Michael Smith Laboratories and the School of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Anna Blakney is an Assistant Professor and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in the Michael Smith Laboratories and School of Biomedical Engineering at UBC. She received her Bachelor of Science in Chemical & Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College London on the development of molecular and biomaterial engineering strategies for delivery of self-amplifying RNA. Her lab uses bioengineering, molecular biology and immunology approaches to develop the next generation of RNA vaccines and therapies.

Dr. Carl de Boer
Assistant Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Carl de Boer obtained his Bachelor of Computer Science in the Bioinformatics program at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He then did his PhD in Dr. Tim Hughes’ group in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto where he used machine learning and synthetic biology approaches to study the sequence determinants of gene transcription in yeast. Subsequently, Dr. de Boer was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Aviv Regev’s lab at the Broad institute where he pioneered approaches for measuring and predicting the effects of gene regulatory mutations on gene expression.

Dr. de Boer is now an Assistant Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia, and a Michael Smith Health Research BC Scholar. His research aims to develop genomic and computational tools that enable us to understand how the genome is regulated so that we can understand and treat disease. His research spans engineering cells to facilitate genomics Big Data generation, developing DNA synthesis technology, creating machine learning algorithms and bioinformatics tools, developing drugs to treat disorders of gene regulation, and using both computational and experimental approaches to decipher the molecular underpinnings of complex traits and their evolution. He founded is co-director of the Genome Regulatory Code Consortium, together with Jussi Taipale, whose mission is to solve how the sequence of our genome encodes regulatory function across human cell types.

Dr. Marcia Graves
Assistant Professor of Teaching, Department of Microbiology and Immunology 

Biography Coming Soon

Dr. Yanpu He
Assistant Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering 

Yanpu He is an Assistant Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He completed his postdoctoral training with Prof. Angela Belcher in the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2024, and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at MIT in 2021, co-advised by Profs. Paula Hammond and Darrell Irvine. His research lab focuses on protein and cellular engineering to develop immunotherapies for cancer, infectious disease, and neurodegenerative disorders.

Dr. Martin Hirst
Professor and Director, Michael Smith Laboratories

Dr. Martin Hirst is Director of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia, Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Head of Epigenomics at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre. A pioneer in next-generation sequencing, he was among the first to implement ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, and miRNA-seq, and has since established an internationally recognized epigenomics research program at UBC and BC Cancer.
He has played leading roles in major international initiatives, including the NIH Human Reference Epigenome Mapping Consortium, the International Human Epigenome Consortium and the Canadian Epigenetics, Environment and Health Research Consortium. His research focuses on understanding how epigenetic regulation controls normal development and how its disruption contributes to disease, with a particular interest in cancers driven by mutations in epigenetic modifiers.

Dr. Calvin Kuo
Assistant Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering

Biography Coming Soon

Dr. Gabrielle Lam
Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Materials Engineering and School of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Gabrielle Lam is an Associate Professor of Teaching at the University of British Columbia and is the Director of the Undergraduate Program at SBME. She joined UBC shortly after completing her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto in 2018, where she focused on studying and harnessing the oxygen-sensing machinery of cells to drive vascularization of injectable microtissues. In her current role, Gabrielle draws on her research and educational experience in tissue engineering, biomaterials and regenerative medicine to design new curriculum and courses. Gabrielle’s particular interests are in: 1) cross-disciplinary education to enhance student development of social responsibility and leadership skills, and 2) integrating experiential learning to scaffold self-regulated learning.

Dr. Christopher Moraes 
Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering and ICORD (Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute)

Dr. Chris Moraes is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Biomedical Engineering at UBC and Principal Investigator at ICORD.  Chris has bounced around disciplines, having trained in nano, mechanical, biomedical, materials, and chemical engineering. Most recently a Canada Research Chair at McGill University, his research and technical expertise lie at the interface between microfabricated cell culture systems, biomaterials design, advanced imaging technologies, and computational modelling; and he is particularly curious about the role microenvironmental biomechanical forces play in driving disease and development. Recent honours include the McGill Principal’s Prizes for both Outstanding Emerging Researcher, and for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Elitza Tocheva
Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology 

Biography Coming Soon 

Dr. Maria Tokuyama
Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology 

Biography Coming Soon

Dr. Carolina Tropini 
Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology & Immunology and the School of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Carolina Tropini is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the School of Biomedical Engineering, and a Canada Tier 2 Research Chair in Quantitative Microbiota Biology for Health Applications. In 2020 she was nominated a Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator, and she was the first Canadian to be awarded the Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D Scholar, which was granted in the field of Engineering. She is the inaugural Alan Bernstein Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Fellow in the Humans & the Microbiome Program and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar. In 2019, she was nominated as a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar.The Tropini lab is investigating how a disrupted physical environment due to altered nutrition or concurrent with intestinal diseases affects the microbiota and host at a multi-scale level. They are a cross-disciplinary group that incorporates techniques from microbiology, bioengineering and biophysics to create highly parallel assays and study how bacteria and microbial communities function, with the goal of translating the knowledge gained to improve human health.Dr. Tropini conducted her Ph.D. in Biophysics at Stanford University. Her studies in the laboratory of Dr. KC Huang combined computational and experimental techniques to investigate bacterial mechanics and morphogenesis. In 2014 she received the James S. McDonnell Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, and she joined the laboratory of Dr. Justin Sonnenburg at Stanford. During her post-doc, Dr. Tropini applied her background in biophysics to study the impact of physical perturbations on host-associated microbial communities living in the gut.