The Faculty of Arts is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Acting Associate Dean, Equity, Director of Graduate Studies, and eight new Heads and Directors for the 2024-2025 academic year.
New Acting Associate Dean, Equity
Dr. Dylan Robinson
Acting Associate Dean, Equity
Dr. Dylan Robinson is a xwélmexw (Stó:lō/Skwah) artist, curator, writer, and Associate Professor at the School of Music. He served as the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts at Queen’s University from 2015-2022. His work involves reconnecting kinship with Indigenous life incarcerated in museums and examining Indigenous and settler colonial practices of listening. Additionally, he is leading a process for the reparation and redress of music that appropriates Indigenous song and misrepresents Indigenous culture. His book, Hungry Listening published by University Minnesota Press in 2020, reimagines how we understand and write about the Indigenous listening experience.
New Director of Graduate Studies
Dr. Richard Price
Director, Graduate Studies
Dr. Richard Price specializes in International Relations with a focus on norms and ethics in world politics. He has published five books and numerous articles on these topics, and is an Killam Teaching Award recipient. He was Senior Advisor to UBC President Stephen Toope and former Head of Political Science. He recently has developed courses on professional skills development for undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Price is a certified coach and provides guidance for faculty and staff through UBC Coaching Services.
In the role of Director, Graduate Studies, Richard aspires to support units, faculty, and staff to develop skills for students to enhance their personal and professional growth and reach their potential. There is a wealth of evidence-based practices to help students gain clarity on how they may leverage the skills gained in their degrees for various career possibilities, and develop other skills essential for their success. Dr. Price is enthusiastic about collaborating with colleagues to develop programs tailored to their needs and those of their students, fostering student empowerment to achieve their goals.
New Heads and Directors
Dr. Alice Te Punga Somerville
Head, Department of English Language & Literatures
Professor Alice Te Punga Somerville (Māori – Te Āti Awa, Taranaki) is a scholar, poet, and irredentist. She holds a joint appointment with the UBC Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies. Before UBC, she has taught at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, in Australia, Hawai’i, and elsewhere in New Zealand. She is the author of Once Were Pacific: Maori connections to Oceania which won Best First Book 2012 from Native American & Indigenous Studies Association, and 250 Ways to Write an Essay about Captain Cook (2020). Her collection of poetry (Auckland Uni Press, 2022) is called Always Italicise: how to write while colonised. Alice serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals and is the editor of the Journal of New Zealand Literature.
Dr. Joseph Monteyne
Head, Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory
Dr. Joseph Monteyne is a distinguished expert in art history and media cultures, specializing in Renaissance Italy, Northern Europe, 16th and 17th century Spain, and Spanish America. He is the author of several acclaimed books and has received numerous awards and fellowships for his outstanding research contributions. Dr. Monteyne’s new research interests focus on ecocritical approaches to early modern landscape, with a particular emphasis on British visual culture from the 17th to early 19th centuries.
Dr. Tracey Heatherington
Acting Head, Department of Anthropology
Dr. Tracey Heatherington is an environmental anthropologist who specializes in political ecology. She critically studies initiatives for nature conservation, such as parks and protected areas, and the global system of seed banks safeguarding plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. She received the Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing for her book about the making of a new national park in Sardinia, and currently co-edits the Critical Green Engagements series at University of Arizona Press. Drawing on ethnographic perspectives, her ongoing research is interested in how the humanities help us think differently about food security and climate change.
An advocate of transdisciplinary approaches, Dr. Heatherington has previously collaborated on both team research and interdisciplinary teaching in the ecological sciences, as well as scholarly exchanges as a Fellow at the Cornell Society for the Humanities, and the Center for Twenty-First Century Studies. Having served for four years as the Associate Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, she brings a wealth of administrative experience and curiosity to her current role. She joined Anthropology at UBC in 2020, and is excited to support the vibrant research of her colleagues.
Dr. Katherine Bowers
Acting Head, Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies
Dr. Katherine Bowers is an expert in Russophone literature and culture. Her research interests include genre, narrative, environmental humanities, imagined geography, and digital humanities. Her award-winning book, Writing Fear: Russian Realism and the Gothic, was published by University of Toronto Press in 2022. At UBC Dr Bowers directs the Centre for European Studies (2021-22, 2024-present) and is the lead and founder of the Eurasia Research Cluster. Dr Bowers came to UBC from the University of Cambridge, where she was a postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Slavonic Studies and a Research Fellow of Darwin College. In 2023, she was a British Academy Visiting Fellow at the University of St Andrews and a Visiting Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Currently Dr Bowers serves as the Vice-President of the North American Dostoevsky Society.
Dr. Luanne Sinnamon
Director, School of Information
Dr. Luanne Sinnamon is an Associate Professor at the UBC (iSchool) and served as Director from 2015-2020. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto and teaches courses on information retrieval, information services, and open data. Her research focuses on human-centered aspects of information access, including information overload, misinformation, Large Language Model (LLM) based search systems. Dr. Sinnamon is currently leading a SSHRC Insight Grant on Sensemaking and Climate Action.
Dr. Hedy Law
Acting Director, School of Music
Dr. Hedy Law is the Acting Director and Associate Professor of Musicology at UBC School of Music. She holds a Ph.D. in Music Theory and History from the University of Chicago and her research includes eighteenth-century French spectacles, gender, Cantonese opera and music, Chinese immigrants in the Pacific Northwest Region, and global music history. Dr. Law has been actively involved in various academic and cultural organizations and has made significant contributions to the field of musicology through her publications and research endeavors. Her book, Music, Pantomime and Freedom in Enlightenment France, was published by Boydell in 2020.
Dr. Toni Schmader
Head, Department of Psychology
Dr. Toni Schmader is the Head of UBC Psychology and the Director of the Engendering Success in STEM Consortium. She has served as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and on the Executive Committees of both the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. She has over 25 years of experience and over 100 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and published books. Her research examines how stereotypes and bias constrain people’s performance, preferences, and self-views, with a particular focus on gender stereotypes and implicit bias.
Dr. Kirsty Johnston
Head, Department of Theatre and Film
Dr. Kirsty Johnston is a distinguished Professor at the UBC Department of Theatre and Film. Her research focuses on Canadian theatre, modern drama, and the intersection of performance, disability, and health. She is a renowned author, with notable publications such as Stage Turns: Canadian Disability Theatre and Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism. Dr. Johnston has received prestigious awards for her teaching and research, and has played significant roles in various research grants and conference hosting. She is dedicated to aligning the department’s activities with the goals of UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan.
