Dear colleagues,

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Suzanne (Suzie) Currie has been appointed as the next Associate Vice-President and Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation, UBC Okanagan. She will take up her duties on October 1, 2024.

Dr. Currie will provide strategic direction and oversight in supporting and advancing research, scholarly activity and innovation at UBC’s Okanagan campus. In addition to being a member of the Okanagan campus executive, she will also serve as an Associate Vice-President, Research and Innovation for the UBC system.

Dr. Currie currently serves as Associate Vice-President, Research, Innovation and Graduate Studies (Interim) at Acadia University where she is a Professor of Biology. Prior to her current role, Dr. Currie served as Dean of Acadia’s Faculty of Pure and Applied Science from 2018 to 2023. Her service to the research and scholarly community while at Acadia includes co-chairing the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant Evaluation Group and the Acadia University Employment Equity Committee.

A comparative animal physiologist, Dr. Currie’s research is committed to understanding how animals cope with environmental stress in marine and freshwater environments. Her research addresses questions related to climate change, such as how the social environment affects how fish deal with stressors like high temperatures. In her NSERC-funded program, she publishes widely and regularly with her students and collaborators.

Dr. Currie earned her MSc and PhD in Biology from Queen’s University. She then spent three years at the University of Cambridge where she was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Zoology and the Charles and Katherine Darwin Research Fellow in Cambridge’s Darwin College.

Dr. Currie’s appointment marks the successful conclusion of the search process. We would like to thank the members of the search committee for their time and participation, as well as all members of the research community who engaged in the process and contributed to this successful outcome.

We also extend our sincere gratitude to Dr. Phil Barker for his years of exemplary leadership and his ongoing service during the search process.

Congratulations to Dr. Currie on her appointment and we look forward to welcoming her to the UBC community this fall.

Sincerely,

Lesley Cormack
Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellor
UBC Okanagan

Gail Murphy
Vice-President, Research and Innovation