Black Excellence in STEM Speaker Series

This Speaker Series is co-designed and led by the Faculties of Applied Science, Land and Food Systems, Forestry and Science, and Engineering undergraduate student Enoch Tamale.

Date	Time	Location	Panelist	Presentation Title
January 30, 2025	3:30 pm – 5 pm	CEME 1203	Dr. Abdul-Fatawu Abdulai	TBD
February 3, 2025	4 pm – 5:30 pm	CEME 1203	Dr. Daniel Pauly	TBD
February 13, 2025	5 pm – 6:30 pm	CEME 1203	Dr. Love-Ese Chile	Bold Strides Forward – Non-traditional career pathways
February 26, 2025	4 pm – 5:30 pm	CEME 1203	Dr. Anotida Madzvamuse	TBD

Meet the Panelists

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Dr. Abdul-Fatawu Abdulai

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Dr Abdulai conducts research on health informatics, human-computer interaction and health technology design. His program of research seeks to explore how principles of human-computer interaction and trauma-informed care approaches can be leveraged to address inequities in sexual and reproductive health access for marginalized populations. He primarily conducts informatics-related research on endometriosis-associated sexual pains, sexually transmitted infections, and sexual health-related stigma.

 

 

Dr. Daniel Pauly

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Dr. Daniel Pauly is a world-renowned fisheries scientist. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the Sea Around Us initiative, a large research project devoted to identifying and quantifying global fisheries trends. He is also a Killam professor at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

 

The concepts, methods and software which Daniel Pauly led and co-developed are documented in over 1000 scientific and general-interest publications, and are used throughout the world. This applies to the Ecopath modeling approach and software and FishBase, the online encyclopedia of more than 30,000 fish species, which was recently complemented by SeaLifeBase.

 

He is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the International Cosmos Prize, the Volvo Environment Prize, the Nierenberg Prize, the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. He was also named France’s Chevalier de la Legion D’Honneur in 2017.

 

 

Dr. Love-Ese Chile

Presentation Title: Bold Strides Forward – Non-traditional career pathways

 

Love-Ese is known for mobilizing research to drive meaningful change. Her approach is rooted in values of innovation, accessibility, and impact, incorporating storytelling to facilitate stakeholder dialogues.

 

She founded Regenerative Waste Labs, a research consultancy to support innovators in upcycling organic waste into circular products, where she led projects spanning biomaterials, climate adaptation policy, and the circular bioeconomy.

 

Now, Love-Ese is the manager of the BC Agricultural Climate Action Research Network (BCACARN). In her role, she leads a multi-institution network working to increase the climate resiliency of BC’s agricultural sector. Her team delivers knowledge mobilization events, develops plain-language research communications, and oversees the planning and execution of projects that build partnerships across research institutions, government, and industry. 

 

Love-Ese holds a BSc (Honours) from the University of Auckland and a PhD in Chemistry from UBC. She recently received a 2024 Clean50 Emerging Leader Award, the 2023 UBC Chemistry Young Alumnus Awad and the 2024 Gloria Baylis Award for Entrepreneurship and Advocacy from the Canadian Black Scientist Network.

 

 

Dr. Anotida Madzvamuse

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I recently joined the University of British Columbia as a Full Professor in the Department of Mathematics since October 2022. Before that, I was Professor of Mathematical and Computational Biology at the University of Sussex (2006 – 2022: rising from Assistant, Associate to Professor).

 

My research lies at the interface between fundamental disciplines (mathematics, numerical analysis, physics, scientific computing) and experimental sciences (developmental, cellular and plant biology, biomedicine) and seeks to propose, develop, analyse and simulate new mathematical and computational approaches applied to experimental sciences. My research areas are in mathematical modelling and analysis, numerical analysis, and parameter inference and estimation. More specifically, I develop bulk-surface-extracellular PDEs in biology, bulk-surface finite elements, bulk-surface virtual elements, bulk-surface geometric PDEs and their applications to pattern formation (bulk-surface reaction-diffusion models), and cell motility (coupling geometric PDEs with multi-physics to study how single and collective cells migrate through complex non-isotropic environments).

 

I am passionate about teaching both at undergraduate and graduate levels as well as supervising research projects in the areas of theoretical and computational biology.