It is with immense pleasure that the Postdoctoral Fellows Office (PDFO) within the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies announces the two winners of the 2025 Killam Postdoctoral Fellow Research Prize. Both recipients will receive an award of $5,000 in recognition of outstanding research achievements during their time as UBC Postdoctoral Fellows.
The winners of the 2025 Killam Postdoctoral Fellow Research Prize are:
Dr. Jerry Leung: Dr. Jerry Leung is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Faculty of Medicine. His research focuses on understanding and optimizing nanoparticle systems to enable the next-generation gene and cell therapies. Dr. Leung’s work has the potential to create new blood transfusion products to improve patient outcomes, as well as increase the efficacy of current nanoparticle systems to target new diseases.
Dr. Penghui Zhu: Dr. Penghui Zhu worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Wood Science in the Faculty of Forestry and is now a Professor at the Nanjing Forestry University in Nanjing, China. His research transforms renewable forest and agricultural residues such as wood pulp and hemp stalks into high-performance, biodegradable materials for packaging, textiles, and buildings. Dr. Zhu’s work bridges science and sustainability, helping to replace plastics and reduce pollution while advancing innovation in sustainable materials and the circular bioeconomy.
The Killam Postdoctoral Fellow Research Prize is awarded annually for excellence in research. Established in 2011, the Killam PDF Prize is in memory of Izaak Walton Killam and his wife, Dorothy Johnston Killam, who together created the Killam trusts. Two prizes in the amount of $5,000 each are awarded to fulltime Postdoctoral Fellows at UBC in recognition of outstanding research and scholarly contributions while at UBC.