The UBC Department of Botany is delighted to announce and welcome Dr. Shawn Mansfield as our new Head. He will begin his five-year term on July 1, 2022.
Dr. Mansfield, Professor in the Faculty of Forestry and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, focuses his research on the molecular biology of plant cell wall development. He and his collaborators employ functional genomic tools to evaluate the relationship between gene function and plant growth, metabolism, and development.
For his long-standing scholarly contributions to agriculture, food and renewable resources, Dr. Mansfield was named as a 2021 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. This honour is one of the most distinct within the global scientific community.
“I am honoured to have the privilege to work with an extremely talented and recognized group of colleagues, and I look forward to working with them to navigate the post-COVID academic endeavor,” said Dr. Mansfield. “I am confident that the Department is ideally positioned to continue to offer a world-class educational experience in the research and teaching of plant, fungal, and protist biology.”
We would like to thank Dr. Lacey Samuels for stepping in to serve as Interim Head for the last year. Among Dr. Samuels’s accomplishments is her leadership of a self-study for the unit in preparation for the upcoming departmental external review.
The Department looks forward to working with Dr. Mansfield in his new position!