Flow: People, Ideas and Technologies

In this first event of the Moving On series, Green College Leading Scholars Anna Blakney (Biomedical Engineering), Matias Margulis (Public Policy and Global Affairs) and Lydia Wytenbroek (Nursing) will engage in a roundtable discussion on the question: How does the global flow of ideas, knowledge and technology shape our research projects in relation to our disciplinary background? They will discuss this question from the perspectives of a nurse and historian, political scientist and bioengineer, and also reflect on how the flow of people, ideas and technologies shapes our world.

Anna Blakney is an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering, UBC. Her laboratory is comprised of a multidisciplinary group of engineers, immunologists and molecular biologists seeking to engineer the next generation of RNA vaccines and therapies. They seek to gain a deeper understanding of how the components of gene delivery formulations interact with the immune system to improve potency and enable clinical translation. They use a type of RNA called 'self-amplifying RNA,' which is able to replicate upon delivery to a cell and requires a ~100 times lower dose than normal messenger RNA.

Matias Margulis is an Assistant Professor in Public Policy and Global Affairs, UBC. His research centres on the global governance and politics of food security. Food is recognized by the United Nations as a fundamental human right, yet nearly one billion people suffer from hunger and that number is rising. The impacts of climate change on food production, a new global land rush, and the rising use of foodstuffs to produce renewable energy are all transforming the global food economy and creating new challenges for ensuring equitable access to food. Matias seeks to understand the role of global economic and political institutions in facilitating food insecurity as well as providing potential solutions.

Lydia Wytenbroek is an Assistant Professor in Nursing, UBC. Health and medicine is a lens through which she analyzes the global circulation of medical knowledge and power. Her research explores American women surgeon and nurse missionaries in twentieth-century Iran, and she argues that mission nurses' efforts to promote American nursing in Iran intersected with Reza Shah's modernizing initiatives in a way that served Iranian nationalism and state building. Her work is locally grounded, but she uses transnational medical encounters in Iran to explore larger issues of global migration, nursing imperialism, the often false dichotomy between religion and professionalization, gender liberation and the power and politics of global health initiatives. 

Humanity has never been more mobile than it is today. Migration comes in many different shapes and forms, and it impacts those who move and those who stay put in multiple ways. Across roundtable and panel discussions, keynote talks and an edited book presentation, this Green College Leading Scholars Event Series adopts diverse multidisciplinary perspectives from cultural studies, medicine, history, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, political science and bioengineering to dissect and explore the meaning of fast-moving people in a fast-moving world and its implications for our personal and societal physical and mental well-being.

Series Conveners: Anna Blakney, Biomedical Engineering; Benjamin Bryce, History; Annie Ciernia, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Megan Daniels, Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies; Friedrich Götz, Psychology; Manu Madhav, Biomedical Engineering; Matias Margulis, Public Policy and Global Affairs; Elise Stickles, English Language and Literatures; Daniel Vigo, Psychiatry, and Population and Public Health; Lydia Wytenbroek, Nursing; and Ayaka Yoshimizu, Asian Studies.