St. John’s celebrates academic
suecess of students

A look at the lives and motivations of our recent
fellowship winners

Academic excellence is one of the cornerstones of life at St. John’s College, which is why we are
pleased to announce that seven of our residents were recently awarded prestigious fellowships

in recognition of their hard work and dedication.

To put a face to their achievements, we interviewed each recipient and asked about their
nationality and citizenship, area of study and reasons for selecting it, their motivation for
coming to UBC and residing at the College, their opinions on the best part of living at

SJC, and their goals. We’re proud of their success and of the contributions they are making

as part of the SJC community.

ed him at “Canada's leading in 2003 to pursue his love

CC Wong Memorial
Fellowship

university for the study of China,” of Mechanical Engineering, which

and one that allows him to he describes as “a combination

live in the truly international and _ of imagination, art and mathe-

interdisciplinary environment matics” — all of which he consid-

of the College. ers sources of inspiration. An

email from his current supervisor,
“To live with such a diverse
Dr. Nimal Rajapakse, regarding
group of people, among whom :
a proposed area of research is

| i oe
now count some good friends what drew Bijan to UBC over sev-

gaa aia Or xper: eral other potential universities.

ences and knowledge beyond The opportunity to study “mathe-

Desmond Cheung Chinal), is for me the most matical modeling of the behav-

racti f livi .
Now in his second year at attractveaspert ot living.at iour of shape memory alloys

UBC and his third year in Canada,
Desmond is a native of the

the College.”

was an exact fit with his research
interests — and apparently the
excellent Vancouver weather

United Kingdom currently pursu-
, didn’t hurt either!

ing doctoral studies in the
history of later-imperial China. Taking up residency at SJC was
He made the move to Vancouver
and UBC from the University of

Toronto in order to continue

actually “plan B” for Bijan; it was
to be a temporary stay while he
searched for an off-campus apart-

training with his supervisor, Dr. ene putthe wonderul (ood

Tim Brook, who took over as international environment and

Principal of St. John > College last extracurricular activities have con-

D d nies ae Bijan Azadi Borujeni
a Ie) ie i? vinced him SJC is the best place
lranian-born, Bijan came to UBC

move a happy one that has land- |

4

to live. To emphasize his point,
Bijan says, “When | came to
Canada, | never imagined | would
play on a soccer team or play my
Tombak in a concert anymore.”

His career goal is to become a
university professor. His lifelong
goal, however, is to continually
engage in discovery of the world,
“to explore the complex and
amazing interrelation amongst
all of the tiny particles of the
world — beyond the mere physi-
cal laws — to understand and

explain the events most of us sim-

ply call ‘chance’”.

Sir Quo-Wei Lee
Fellowship

Jie (April) Cai

Jie Cai, a citizen of the Peoples’
Republic of China, has chosen to
specialize in economics, global-
ization and the related area of
knowledge spillover. Her interest
in these areas stems from her
understanding that the ability to
innovate new products is the
source of monopoly power for
developed countries, and that if