Connect with Faculty

Naoko Ellis

Chemical and Biological Engineering - Faculty of Applied Science

Dr. Naoko Ellis is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering who has integrated sustainability and systems perspectives across undergraduate and graduate curricula, including engineering leadership, energy systems, and transdisciplinary research training. She is the creator and instructor of courses that foster systems literacy and collaborative problem-solving, and she leads initiatives such as the Systems Beings Lab and the ACET transdisciplinary PhD training program. Her work is supported by national and international collaborations, including partnerships with Utrecht University, the University of Cambridge, and the Global Alliance for Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, advancing new models for sustainability learning and systems change.

Tara Ivanochko

Associate Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning

Dr. Tara Ivanochko is a Professor of Teaching at the University of British Columbia and the Associate Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning. Tara has been engaged with Sustainability Education at UBC for more than 15 years as Director of Environmental Science undergraduate program, and more recently as the Academic Director of the UBC Sustainability Hub. Tara helped envision the UBC 20-year Sustainability Strategy, co-developed the new UBC Certificate in Climate Studies and Action, and redesigned the Environmental Science Curriculum. As an educator, Tara builds relationships between students and community organizations through collaborative research projects. These projects allow students to actively contribute to building sustainable communities.

Fernanda Tomaselli

Forest Resources Management - Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Stewardship

Dr. Fernanda Tomaselli has an interdisciplinary background with expertise in environmental communication, ecological economics, and conservation, and more than five years of experience teaching courses in forestry, climate change, and sustainability in higher education. She is the Director of UBC's Land One Program. Her academic training includes a BSc in Environmental Communication from Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador (2005), and an MSc (2011) and PhD (2017) from UBC's Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship.

Dr. Tomaselli's teaching and research focus on fostering awareness of global sustainability challenges and exploring how sustainability concepts can be communicated effectively to diverse audiences. Her work centres on sustainability and climate education, with particular interests in interdisciplinary curriculum development and transformative, experiential pedagogies that empower learners to engage in meaningful environmental and climate action.

Kathryn Harrison

Political Science - Faculty of Arts

Kathryn Harrison is Professor of Political Science. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Western Ontario, Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and Political Science from MIT, and a PhD in Political Science from UBC.

Dr. Harrison studies environmental, climate, and energy policy, federalism, and comparative public policy. She is the author of the book Passing the Buck: Federalism and Canadian Environmental Policy and co-author of Risk, Science, and Politics. 

Harrison was UBC’s acting Dean of Arts from 2016 to 2017, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty and Equity from 2015 to 2018, and Associate Dean, Strategy and Communications from 2008 to 2011. She has served on the editorial/publication boards of UBC Press, Canadian Public Policy, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, and Regulation and Governance.

Before beginning an academic career, Harrison worked as an engineer in the oil industry, a public servant for the government of Canada and the US Congress, and a journalist.

Hannah Wittman

Applied Biology, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, appointed jointly with the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Faculty of Science.

Dr. Hannah Wittman’s research examines the ways that the rights to produce and consume food are contested and transformed through struggles for agrarian reform, food sovereignty, and agrarian citizenship. Her projects include community-based research on farmland access, transition to organic agriculture, and seed sovereignty in British Columbia, agroecological transition and the role of institutional procurement in the transition to food sovereignty in Ecuador and Brazil, and the role that urban agriculture and farm-to-school nutrition initiatives play in food literacy education.

Sandra Scott

Curriculum and Pedagogy - Faculty of Education

Before joining UBC I was a classroom teacher and also worked as a marine educator and park naturalist. These experiences prompted me to pursue a MA and PhD in Science and Environmental Education. I teach elementary science methods as well as courses in communications, environmental learning, and research methods. I enjoy working with Teacher Candidates and undergraduate science students in my role as Faculty Advisor with the Teacher Education Office. My research focuses on elementary science, environmental education, and teacher education. I view myself as a naturalist, scientist, and educator of, for, and in the environment; I am a passionate advocate for learning experiences that nurture our sense of wonder for the human and more than human world.

I am dedicated to science and environmental education, and elementary science is my home. My goal is for students to become confident, knowledgeable, and excited about teaching science. The Having of Wonderful Ideas in both theory and practice is linked through inquiry, doing, collaborating, wondering, reflecting, remembering, and taking action. My dialogical approach emphasizes hands on direct experiences, long-term engagement, and in-depth observation, conversation, and reflection. My course curricula and pedagogies are informed by scholarly and professional literature exploring inquiry, slow pedagogy, ethical caring, constructivism, Storywork, Indigenous ways and decolonizing perspectives, and place as EcoPedagogy.

Maggie Low

Community and Regional Planning -  Faculty of Applied Science

Maggie Low is the Co-Chair of the Indigenous Community Planning (ICP) program at SCARP. Maggie was born and raised in Sudbury, Ontario and is of mixed ancestry including Italian, French, German, English and she is a status member of Wikwemikoong Unceded Territory. Maggie has been fortunate enough to work with and for First Nations in what is now known as British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario. Off campus, Maggie enjoys running, camping, drinking good coffee and eating with friends and family.

Patrick Robertson

Curriculum and Pedagogy - Faculty of Education

Patrick Robertson (BA, BEd, MA, PhD(c)) has been in the field of education for over two decades. He currently co-leads the Education for Sustainability teacher education cohort in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. Patrick also leads Syncollab Strategies, a consulting collaborative in B.C., coordinates the Classrooms to Communities (C2C) Education Network, and serves as a director or advisor for other provincial and national organizations focused on sustainability, climate, teacher education, literacy, and educational transformation. He works in the policy realm as well, contributing to provincial curriculum, including recent initiatives focused on climate education. Patrick is currently engaged in doctoral studies focused on climate change education in teacher (and K-12) education in collaboration with diverse communities of practice.

Gabriel Potvin

Chemical and Biological Engineering - Faculty of Applied Science

Dr. Gabriel Potvin is a Professor of Teaching in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at UBC, and a Director of the Canadian Engineering Education Association. Though his technical background is in the development and large-scale production of novel microorganisms for the sustainable manufacture of low-cost therapeutics, food additives, biofuels, and industrially-relevant enzymes, his more recent areas of interest are in engineering education. He has done extensive work in problem-based learning, laboratory and experiential instruction, interdisciplinary and sustainability education, and curriculum design, leveraging these areas to train engineers who are not only technically proficient, but who have the critical thinking, creative problem-solving, interdisciplinary, and teamwork skills necessary to tackle new and emerging technical and societal challenges. He teaches a wide range of technical (e.g. bioprocess design), non-technical (e.g. impact of technology on society) and interdisciplinary (e.g. humanitarian engineering) courses, each incorporating sustainability in their design. 

He has won numerous awards for his teaching and educational leadership, most recently a 3M National Teaching Fellowship, and the 2024 Engineers Canada Medal for Distinction in Engineering Education. He is also a Fellow of Engineers Canada and of the Canadian Engineering Education Association.

Robert VanWynsberghe

Educational Studies - Faculty of Education

Resolving essential questions about human action, social change, and the social role of the classroom is Dr. VanWynsberghe's current research and teaching focus. Answers are emerging to the foregoing question through the implementation of diverse, and sometimes experimental, ways of contributing to the sustainability movement. A recent book, entitled “Adaptive Education: An Inquiry-based Institution,” establishes an innovative pedagogy. He began the serious testing of the attendant theories and concepts immediately. In 2016, Dr. VanWynsberghe initiated a MEd program in Education for Sustainability that partners graduate students with the City of Vancouver according to successful model created and honed by the CityStudio. This program successfully graduated all 15 students in the fall of 2018. At the same time, a small group of teachers, scholars, and practitioners, including Dr. Wynsberghe, began to investigate ways to establish pathways for the stronger presence of sustainability in the teacher education program at UBC. As a result, and since 2018, the Teacher Education program at UBC will sees dozens of service teachers annually learn ways to integrate sustainability into their practices and curriculum.

Michele Koppes

Geography - Faculty of Arts

Dr. Koppes' research and teaching explores how glaciers, mountains, and the people who dwell within them are responding to ongoing climate change.

Ongoing research projects focus on the landscape and hazards responses to changing ice dynamics, the effects of climate change on meltwater resources and on mountain cultures, and the lived experiences of people living with the cascading effects of climate change in BC, Alaska, Patagonia, Greenland and the Himalayas.

Dr. Koppes is fascinated with how the intersections of landscapes and culture are captured in oral histories, art and landform analysis, particularly the loss of ice, the imprints of human on the landscape and how we process and adapt (or maladapt) to landscape change.