Steve Commichau
Doctor of Philosophy in Germanic Studies (PhD)
Canadian Immigration Updates
Review details about the recently announced changes to study and work permits that apply to master’s and doctoral degree students. Read more
The Faculty of Arts at UBC brings together the best of quantitative research, humanistic inquiry, and artistic expression to advance a better world. Graduate students in the Faculty of Arts create and disseminate knowledge in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Creative and Performing Arts through teaching, research, professional practice, artistic production, and performance.
Arts has more than 25 academic departments, institutes, and schools as well as professional programs, more than 15 interdisciplinary programs, a gallery, a museum, theatres, concert venues, and a performing arts centre. Truly unique in its scope, the Faculty of Arts is a dynamic and thriving community of outstanding scholars – both faculty and students.
Here, our students explore cutting-edge ideas that deepen our understanding of humanity in an age of scientific and technological discovery. Whether Arts scholars work with local communities, or tackle issues such as climate change, world music, or international development, their research has a deep impact on the local and international stage.
The disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches in our classrooms, labs, and cultural venues inspire students to apply their knowledge both to and beyond their specialization. Using innovation and collaborative learning, our graduate students create rich pathways to knowledge and real connections to global thought leaders.
Research Centres
Research Facilities
UBC Library has extensive collections, especially in Arts, and houses Canada’s greatest Asian language library. Arts graduate programs enjoy the use of state-of-the-art laboratories, the world-renowned Museum of Anthropology and the Belkin Contemporary Art Gallery (admission is free for our graduate students). World-class performance spaces include theatres, concert venues and a performing arts centre.
Since 2001, the Belkin Art Gallery has trained young curators at the graduate level in the Critical and Curatorial Studies program in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory. The Master of Arts program addresses the growing need for curators and critics who have theoretical knowledge and practical experience in analyzing institutions, preparing displays and communicating about contemporary art.
The MOA Centre for Cultural Research (CCR) undertakes research on world arts and cultures, and supports research activities and collaborative partnerships through a number of spaces, including research rooms for collections-based research, an Ethnology Lab, a Conservation Lab, an Oral History and Language Lab supporting audio recording and digitization, a library, an archive, and a Community Lounge for groups engaged in research activities. The CCR includes virtual services supporting collections-based research through the MOA CAT Collections Online site that provides access to the Museum’s collection of approximately 40,000 objects and 80,000 object images, and the Reciprocal Research Network (RRN) that brings together 430,000 object records and associated images from 19 institutions.
Research Highlights
The Faculty of Arts at UBC is internationally renowned for research in the social sciences, humanities, professional schools, and creative and performing arts.
As a research-intensive faculty, Arts is a leader in the creation and advancement of knowledge and understanding. Scholars in the Faculty of Arts form cross-disciplinary partnerships, engage in knowledge exchange, and apply their research locally and globally.
Arts faculty members have won Guggenheim Fellowships, Humboldt Fellowships, and major disciplinary awards. We have had 81 faculty members elected to the Royal Society of Canada, and several others win Killam Prizes, Killam Research Fellowships, Emmy Awards, and Order of Canada awards. In addition, Arts faculty members have won countless book prizes, national disciplinary awards, and international disciplinary awards.
External funding also signifies the research success of our faculty. In the 2020-2021 fiscal year, the Faculty of Arts received $34.6 million through over 900 research projects. Of seven UBC SSHRC Partnership Grants awarded to-date, six are located in Arts, with a combined investment of $15 million over the term of the grants.
Since the 2011 introduction of the SSHRC Insight Grants and SSHRC Insight Development Grants programs, our faculty’s success rate has remained highly stable, and is consistently higher than the national success rate.
Schools / Departments
School
Department
Graduate Degree Programs
Research Supervisors in Faculty
or browse the list of faculty members in various academic units. You may click each unit to view faculty members appointed in that unit. View the full faculty member directory for more search and filter options.
| Name | Academic Unit(s) | Research Interests |
|---|---|---|
| Justice, Daniel | Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, Department of English Language and Literatures | Aboriginal, First Nations, Metis, Indigenous, Aboriginal literature, Aboriginal cultures, Aboriginal history, Aboriginal Studies, First Nations Studies, badgers, animal studies, cultural studies, GLBT issues, Queer Studies, sexuality, First Nations Studies Program, Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture |
| Kadir, Aynur | Department of Asian Studies, Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies | Documentation, conservation and revitalization of Indigenous cultures and languages, Uyghur literature, musical traditions and cultural practices, global indigeneity from the Uyghur in China to Coast Salish and Six Nations in Canada, transnational Indigenous diplomacy, safeguarding and revitalization of languages and cultural heritage |
| Kam, Christopher | Department of Political Science | Nature and evolution of parliamentary democracy, historical development of institutions |
| Kamat, Vinay Ramnath | Department of Anthropology | Anthropology; Global Health and Emerging Diseases; Dispossession; East Africa; ethnography; Extractive Industry; Global Health; India; Malaria; marine conservation; Medical Anthropology; Outsourcing of Clinical Trials; political ecology; Tanzania |
| Kandlikar, Milind | School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability | Climate change impacts and adaptation; Product life cycle; Environmental policy; Research, science and technology policy; Environmental impacts; Climate Change and energy transition; Technological Risk; Technology and Development |
| Karimi, Aryan | Department of Sociology | Sociology; migration and refugee flows; role of ethnic and racial boundaries in assimilation practices; lived experiences of racialized refugee and diasporic communities |
| Karki, Karun | School of Social Work | sense of belonging among the racialized diaspora and minoritized communities, ethno-racial and gender segregation in the Canadian labour market, social determinants of health of diasporic and marginalized communities |
| Karwowska, Bozena | Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies | Sexuality, Body and Gender in Nazi Concentration Camps |
| Kasahara, Hiroyuki | Vancouver School of Economics | Econometrics and international trade |
| Kemple, Thomas | Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies | Social and cultural theory, history of social sciences, literary and interpretive methods, aesthetic sociology, visual representation of concepts and arguments |
| Kerns, Connor | Department of Psychology | assessment and treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD); childhood anxiety and stress-related disorders; trauma-related disorders; Autism; Anxiety; Comorbidity |
| Khanna, Tarun | School of Public Policy and Global Affairs | Economics; Renewable energy systems (except smart systems engineering); Environmental policy; energy economics; Evidence synthesis; policy evaluation; electricity markets; energy in development; decarbonization of the energy sector |
| Kia, Hannah | School of Social Work | LGBTQ2S+ health; LGBTQ2S+ aging; social work and other professional practice with sexual and gender minorities; effective social work practice with trans and gender diverse people; poverty, sexual and mental health issues among diverse LGBTQ2S+ populations |
| Kim, Eric | Department of Psychology | Health psychology; Psychosocial, sociocultural and behavioral determinants of health; Epidemiology (except nutritional and veterinary epidemiology); psychological well-being; Purpose in life / Meaning in life; resilience; Optimism / Hope; Health Psychology; Social Epidemiology; Aging |
| Kim, Christine | Department of English Language and Literatures | English language; Asian North American literature and theory; Canadian Literature; Cultural Studies; Diaspora Studies |
| Kim, Sooyeon | School of Public Policy and Global Affairs | |
| King, Ross | Department of Asian Studies | Historical linguistics, diachronics, and dialectology; Korean philology; history of Korean literary culture; Korean historical linguistics; Korean dialectology; history of the Sinographic Cosmopolis |
| Kingstone, Alan | Department of Psychology | Cognitive sciences; Brain mechanisms of human perception, attention, and behaviour in experimental & everyday situations |
| Klein, Peter | School of Journalism, Writing, and Media | Media Types (Radio, Television, Written Press, etc.); Video and New Media; Global Health and Emerging Diseases; Large International Projects; Media and Democratization; Global Journalism; Innovation in Journalism; Documentary Production; Investigative Reporting |
| Klein, Naomi | Department of Geography | crisis and political transformation, large-scale shocks as catalysts and accelerators for broad-based social change |
| Klonsky, Elisha | Department of Psychology | Clinical psychology; Suicide (theory, motivations, transition from suicidal thoughts to attempts); emotion; personality. |
| Koh, Germaine | Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory | Visual art |
| Kojevnikov, Alexei | Department of History | Modern history of science, especially physics, science, society,and culture, Russia and Soviet History, Nuclear History and the Cold War |
| Koncan, Frances | School of Creative Writing | |
| Koppes, Michele | Department of Geography | climate change, glaciers, natural hazards, landscape change, polar regions, ice-ocean interactions |
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Graduate Student Stories
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Recent Publications
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Arts.
Recent Thesis Submissions
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The Arthur of the March of Wales (ENGL - PHD)
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Pidgin poetics : language culture in modern China (ASIA - PHD)
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Statues in early modern English drama (ENGL - MA)
Doctoral Citations
A doctoral citation summarizes the nature of the independent research, provides a high-level overview of the study, states the significance of the work and says who will benefit from the findings in clear, non-specialized language, so that members of a lay audience will understand it.
| Year | Citation | Program |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Dr. Huijsmans investigated a set of small words with grammatical functions in ?ay?aj u¸Ym (Comox-Sliammon; Central Salish). These encode information about utterance type, source of evidence, speaker certainty, and broader discourse context. This research contributes to documentation available to future language learners, teachers, and researchers. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Mukherji shows how the entry of immigrants in the local labour markets can impact market institutions like unions. He also examines how economic conditions both in their source economy and in the market of entry can affect their labour supply decisions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2023 | Foreign investment can benefit the recipient economy. Dr. Burzo examined empirically the political and economic aspects that influence the destination of foreign investments. His findings contribute to policy discussions on the redefinition of the international investment regime, particularly in relation to developing countries. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Angsongna's work explored the word structure and the sound system of Dagaare, a language spoken in northwestern Ghana. His research showed how words are formed and how they differ in the expression of grammatical meanings. This research contributes to the documentation of the language and to the development of linguistic theory. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Shankar explored practices with immigration data in Canada. Findings emphasize difference, interdependence, and the need for negotiation of responsibilities across groups working with immigration data. Her work offers implications to governmental and non-governmental actors for ethical decision making and the use of communities' data with care. | Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Zhang studies online gamblers' betting behavior, examining how prior wins/losses affect ones' future betting. She identifies high-risk gamblers based on their behavior and develops interventions to reduce bets, improving prevention and intervention for gambling disorder | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Bercovici examined how neural activity in the prefrontal cortex supports behavioural flexibility. She showed that prefrontal neurons convey distinctive information for guiding choices during different phases of the decision-action sequence. Her research reveals how neural activity in this region shapes animals' perception of the decision context. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Desmarès studies patterns of discrimination in key citizenship policies adopted after World War II in France and Switzerland. She finds that new policies (re)introduced discriminatory provisions based on gender, race, ability status, and one's mode of nationality acquisition. Her work highlights the limits and drifts of liberal citizenship. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Diabo studied the politics of listening in Mohawk and other First Peoples' literatures. Taking the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace as a blueprint, their research theorizes what it means to listen politically in both First Peoples and settler-colonial contexts. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Gemaliel Vimala's research using food prices in India showed that when people use physical cash for transactions, prices are usually set in round digits and they change less often. In an online setting, such bunching reduces and prices change more frequently. This brings out the policy implication of increased flexibility of prices in a cashless world. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |