NEWS SPOTLIGHT

We are excited to share that Dr. Hal Bradbury, Assistant Professor in Chemical Oceanography in the department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS), has been awarded support from the B.C. Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF) by the Government of B.C. The BCKDF goes towards the development of research infrastructure, with the goal of fostering innovation at B.C.’s research institutions. The $400,000 in funding will contribute to the development of a stable isotope laboratory at EOAS for the purpose of carbon cycle and climate change research.

Dr. Bradbury’s isotope geochemistry research focuses on the marine sedimentary environment. The project supported by the BCKDF will couple research into the climate of the past with research into critical mineral deposit formation. Studying the sensitivity of Earth’s climate to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations as well as the minerals integral to the clean-energy transition sets this project apart - it may increase both our understanding of future climate change and our ability to combat it. 

In receiving this award Dr. Bradbury joins 71 UBC award holders who the province hopes can help institutions attract gifted researchers and collaborate with industry. Congratulations Hal! 

Learn more about Dr. Bradbury’s research in this interview:

Read the full PMSA article here: Collaboration Between Canadian and Chilean University Consortiums Strives to Understand and Protect the Ocean 

Canadian and Chilean marine science organizations have formalized a new partnership to strengthen collaborative ocean research and education across the Pacific Rim and polar regions. The agreement, signed on November 25, 2025, brings together the Pacific Marine Science Alliance (PMSA), a consortium of five western Canadian universities including UBC, and the newly forming Chilean National Consortium of Ocean Science, led by the Océanos Institute at the University of Concepción and comprising ten research institutions across Chile. 

Canada and Chile together account for more than one-fifth of the world’s coastline and play leading roles in Arctic and Antarctic research. Despite their distance, the two countries have strikingly similar Pacific coastal environments and face many of the same ocean challenges, related to climate change, ocean acidification, fisheries resource management, and coastal hazards. Coordinating research across hemispheres creates new opportunities to understand how large-scale ocean processes shape regional ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. 

For UBC researchers, the agreement builds on more than a decade of Canada–Chile collaboration led by Dr. Philippe Tortell, a professor in Biological Oceanography at EOAS, whose work spans the eastern Pacific and polar regions. These collaborations have supported joint field programs, graduate student exchanges, and international training in ocean observation, biogeochemistry, and data science. Programs such as PRODIGY (Pacific Rim Ocean Data Mobilization and Technology) have provided many EOAS students with interdisciplinary and cross-cultural experience alongside Chilean colleagues. 

“This agreement marks a significant step forward in building a large-scale ocean research program across the Pacific Rim,” said Tortell. “Canada and Chile share many ocean challenges, and with that, a responsibility to provide global leadership in the protection and sustainable development of ocean resources.” 

The agreement signing followed a research visit to Chile by a Canadian delegation representing PMSA, including EOAS faculty Philippe Tortell, Rich Pawlowicz and Michael Bostock, along with UBC Dean of Science Mark MacLachlan. Hosted by the University of Concepción, the Catholic University of Chile, and the Catholic University of Valparaíso, the visit focused on identifying opportunities for coordinated research programs, shared infrastructure, and expanded student mobility, with plans to begin these efforts in 2026. 

The PMSA–Océanos agreement was signed alongside a Memorandum of Understanding between NSERC (the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) and Chile’s national research agency, ANID (Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo), creating a broader framework for Canadian-Chilean research collaboration. Representatives from both countries’ science ministries, funding agencies, and diplomatic missions attended the signing ceremony. 

Together, these agreements mark a major milestone for Pacific Rim ocean science under the UN Ocean Decade, positioning UBC and its partners within a growing international network dedicated to advancing ocean knowledge and stewardship at a global scale. 

EOAS hosted American science-comedian Ben Miller on November 5th for a whirlwind, 24-hour visit. Miller has performed in Victoria and Toronto before (and even in Benmiller, Ontario), but this was his first chance to visit Vancouver and meet the EOAS community. The city greeted him with steady rain, warm crowds, and excellent sushi squeezed in just before his flight home. 

Miller started his visit with lunch on campus with four EOAS graduate students. The group discussed his path from engineering to full-time comedy, his approach to science communication, and the process of shaping complex scientific ideas into accessible, humorous material. Students were particularly interested in how he balances scientific accuracy with storytelling, and how he handles challenging audiences—an experience familiar to any researcher presenting their work.

After lunch, Miller spent a few hours exploring campus and particularly enjoyed the Museum of Anthropology before heading to the Earth Sciences Building for the evening performance. The show sold out, with extra hopefuls gathered in the lobby in case there were any no-shows. EOAS professor Brett Gilley opened the event before Miller took the stage for his one-hour set, Volcano.

Volcano is Miller’s second full-length science-comedy show, developed after he served as the Artist in Residence at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park in 2023—the first stand-up comedian ever selected for that role. During his residency, he learned about the science, history, and cultural significance of Hawai’i’s volcanoes, and transformed those experiences into a show that blends accurate geoscience with approachable comedy. The EOAS audience responded accordingly with “explosive” laughter throughout the performance.

Ben Miller’s Volcano show uses humour to make complex geoscience accessible, and EOAS was thrilled to host an evening that celebrated both scientific curiosity and the value of creative communication. We want to make this an annual event. If you have earth-science inspired comedians that you would love to see grace the halls of ESB next year, please reach out to the EOAS communications team via socialmedia@eoas.ubc.ca. 

Read the full UBC Science article here: Will B.C. get a charge from lithium?

Researchers from the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) at UBC have uncovered the first major lithium-bearing pegmatite in British Columbia – the Prof pegmatite above the town of Revelstoke on Boulder Mountain – marking an important advancement in understanding the potential of critical mineral resources of the province.

This discovery was led by Dr. Catriona Breasley, a recent EOAS PhD graduate and now founder and Principal Consultant at Criterra. While examining the outcrop, Dr. Breasley suspected that some of the clear crystals with pink rims and a distinctive lustre were lithium-rich petalite—an insight she later confirmed through X-ray powder diffraction. Over three field seasons, she collected more than 100 tourmaline samples from the Prof pegmatite. 

“B.C. is a geologist’s dream, especially up in the alpine where there’s perfect rock exposures,” says Dr. Breasley. “When you find petalite mineralization in one pegmatite, the likelihood you’re going to find much more is quite high. There are hundreds of pegmatites in the area, which are fairly difficult to reach, places that could contain much more significant lithium mineralization than what I found at the Prof pegmatite.”

Crucially, Dr. Breasley also developed a new method that uses tourmaline chemistry as a roadmap to detect lithium hidden deep underground. “We can see a hundred or more pegmatite intrusions in a 15-kilometre band running from Mount Begbie to Boulder Mountain,” says Dr. Lee Groat, Professor at EOAS and PhD supervisor of Dr. Breasley. “However, very few show lithium minerals on the surface — and the Prof pegmatite is the only one that has petalite. What Catriona found was that the chemistry of the tourmaline can tell you if an intrusion is likely to contain lithium at depth. This is important because the surface expression of a pegmatite dike is often small.”

Together, these findings highlight the broader potential of the Revelstoke region for future resource exploration and provide geologists with a new and effective way to identify lithium-rich pegmatites. Their work strengthens Canada’s ability to assess its critical mineral resources at a time when demand for lithium, particularly for rechargeable vehicle batteries, continues to grow.

Watch the UBC Science interviews with Drs. Breasley and Groat:

If you’ve spent time in the Earth Sciences Building, you’ve probably seen the Beaty Biodiversity Museum directly across Main Mall the beautiful whale skeleton makes it hard to miss. What’s less obvious is that EOAS and the Beaty Biodiversity Museum have more in common than just their affinity for enormous hanging sea-creature bones – Dr. Bruce Archibald also sits in the centre of this overlap. 

Dr. Archibald is the Curator of the Fossil Collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. He has taken on the task of bringing order to EOAS’s fossil holdings, a research-grade collection that spans the entire geologic column and includes material from around the world. But his ambitions extend beyond cataloguing. Dr. Archibald wants to make UBC a hub for Eocene research. “We’ve got the good stuff,” he says. “If we can focus on this and build what we have here, I think that the Beaty will have a world-class collection.” 

The Eocene fossils of the BC interior document life in upland forests about 51 million years ago,  an exceptionally warm time when many modern plant and animal groups first appeared. An amazingly rich record of insects, leaves, fish, flowers, and rare birds and mammals was fossilised in lakes scattered across the landscape from Smithers, BC through south-central BC to northern Washington, preserving an extraordinary biodiversity. The BC and Washington uplands offered a temperate refuge from the extreme Eocene heat, and Dr. Archibald’s research shows that their ecosystems rivalled the richness of modern tropical rainforests. Fossils from these sites reveal communities where plants and animals that we now consider strictly temperate or tropical coexisted.

The Eocene ended with a drop in atmospheric carbon and an intense plummet in global temperatures that resulted in the extinction, adaptation, and changes in the ranges of many plant and animal species. The divide between those that adapted to cold winters and those that did not offers a window into how modern life might respond to human-driven climate change.  Remarkably, many of the fossils that record this shift are only a short trip from campus

Dr. Archibald makes excursions to these fossil sites regularly, contributing many thousands of specimens to the collection, but fieldwork is only part of what drives him. Dr. Archibald’s unwritten policy is that he makes an effort to engage with local people, to learn about what the fossils mean to them and share his own knowledge. He often gives public talks, helps run field schools for teachers, works with First Nations, and organizes dig-days for kids. This connection  with communities has blossomed in many ways— from collaborating with Indigenous Elders on naming newly discovered species, to long-lasting and rewarding relationships with local fossil enthusiasts. One Princeton resident, Beverley Burlingame, is determined to find a fossil worthy of display at the Beaty Museum; Dr. Archibald believes she deserves an award for amateur paleontology. Another, Daniel Moses from the Colville Reservation, has had Dr. Archibald’s guidance in fostering his love for fossils since he was six. Now pursuing a Ph.D. in paleontology at Arizona State University, Daniel still  joins him in outreach events, connecting communities with their deep past.

Dr. Archibald’s work highlights how a well-curated fossil collection can support both research and community outreach. His steady efforts to strengthen UBC’s Eocene collection reflect that practical goal, and the benefits are already taking shape in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum and in the communities he works with.

seed2STEM is a summer research program for Indigenous high school students in Metro Vancouver and Kelowna, with the goal of increasing Indigenous participation in STEM fields. This summer, two EOAS groups hosted students for the first time: the Pacific Museum of Earth (PME) and Dr. Rachel White’s Climate Dynamics group, offering earth science perspectives to the program. As a researcher, the work that seed2STEM does felt like an important contribution towards reconciliation for Rachel White, who stressed the significance of “helping Indigenous high school students see what we actually do here.” 

seed2STEM reduces both tangible and perceived participation barriers—students are paid for their work, financial support for homestays is available for participants from outside the region, and careful student-mentor pairings along with weekly research-focused group activities foster community among the program participants, alumni, and supporters. The program has been running since 2018, beginning with a single student in spinal cord injury research at ICORD. Internships now include neuroscience, engineering, chemistry, biology, math, physics, and, new this year, earth science. 

Returning participants Catalina Claxton and Ila Joseph, who were paired with mentors Oli Beeby and Tirpat Sekhon at the PME, were thrilled to explore non-traditional ways of engaging with science. They primarily worked on displays in the PME gallery—Catalina’s on wildfires and Ila’s on ocean conservation—applying their artistic skills to contribute to science communication at the museum. 

Thatcher Bradshaw, a grade 10 student participating in the program, was paired with graduate students Taylor Swift-Lapointe and Lualawi Mareshet Admasu in the Climate Dynamics Group. Thatcher quickly learned and applied coding skills to earth science data, culminating in an impressive final project on long-term cold spell prevalence in BC. 

At the end of the six-week internship, the students presented their work at a poster session at ICORD, where students could show off what they learned and mentors could be wowed by all the work done across the seed2STEM program. This was just the final event in the array of programming that seed2STEM provided its participants. Notably for Catalina and the PME, a guest speaker on cultural burning and Indigenous wildfire management practices inspired Catalina to include additional content in her wildfire display—material she, and certainly the PME, might not have encountered otherwise.

Working with high school students was a unique opportunity for the mentors to learn from as well. “There are concepts that we learned during undergrad and then into graduate school that you kind of take for granted—you forget that you didn’t know what that was at one point… It was pretty fun just to go back to basics,” shared Taylor Swift-Lapointe. This sentiment was echoed by all the mentors interviewed. Oli Beeby noted that the PME was drawn to the program partly to strengthen its connection with young people. Working with an engaged high-school student for an extended period provides a unparalleled opportunity to refine how you explain your work. 

We’ll end with a quote from Lualawi, who captured perfectly why others should consider hosting a seed2STEM intern in the future:

“’Its quite enriching doing these programs—not even just the sense of contributing to the community and letting students see what you could do in science, but it’s also a really fun experience. There are really bright minds out there. They have really interesting ideas that you haven’t thought about because it’s very fresh minds coming to the program.” 

If you are interested in potentially participating in the seed2STEM program please visit https://icord.org/seed2stem/projects/ to learn about the timeline and process for hosting a student.

Read more about seed2STEM and other organisations and departments participating in it: ICORD-main program description, ICORD-program growth, DMCBH, BCCHR, UBC, UBC-City of Vancouver Leadership in Reconciliation Award