The UBC-V Public Humanities Hub is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Public Engagement Awards. These awards are given to individuals and partner organizations who have exhibited outstanding public humanities engagement in the past two years, and whose work has contributed to the expansion of the range of voices in public discourse. Congratulations to the winners.
Tenured or Tenure-Track Faculty
Dr. Carol Liao (Allard School of Law)
Dr. Carol Liao is Associate Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law and the UBC Sauder Distinguished Fellow of the Peter P. Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at the UBC Sauder School of Business. She is the Chair and Principal Co-Investigator of the Canada Climate Law Initiative, an interdisciplinary research hub advancing director knowledge on the latest in climate science, climate risk disclosures, and fiduciary obligations. She is internationally recognized for her expertise in corporate law, sustainability, and climate governance, and has been featured and cited over 100 times in TV, radio, and print news media.
Dr. Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam (Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies)
Dr. Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam is an Assistant Professor and settler scholar in the Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies at UBC in Vancouver. She is currently completing her book manuscript Graphic Historiography: History & Memory through Comics and Graphic Novels (Ohio State University Press). Biz’s research and teaching include the representation of history in comics, comics and new media on forced migration, intersections between Indigenous studies and German, European, and migration studies, digital and analog game studies, and feminist methodologies in the graphic arts. Biz sits on the Executive Committee of the International Comic Arts Forum, is the Director of the Comics Studies Cluster in UBC’s Public Humanities Hub, and is Co-Director of the Popular Media for Social Change Research Excellence Cluster.
Dr. Jocelyn Stacey (Allard School of Law)
Dr. Jocelyn Stacey is Associate Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, UBC. She researches how law regulates disaster as disconnected and exceptional events, contrary to the experiences of those most vulnerable to disaster and in spite of our current era of climate disruption. Her book, The Constitution of the Environmental Emergency (Hart Publishing, 2018) addresses what the rule of law requires in light of our vulnerability to catastrophic environmental harm.
Jocelyn works closely with First Nations on legal issues related to emergencies and Indigenous jurisdiction. She served on the Research Council for the Public Order Emergency Commission (2022-2023), which inquired into the first invocation of Canada’s Emergencies Act. Jocelyn is President of the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation, a non-profit society dedicated to training law students and young lawyers in public interest environmental law litigation.
Dr. Helena Wu (Department of Asian Studies)
Dr. Helena Wu is Canada Research Chair and Assistant Professor of Hong Kong Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at UBC. Her areas of research include textual and visual narratives, popular culture, creative practices, and spectatorship, with a special focus on Hong Kong cinema, literature, and culture. She is keen on exploring cross-cultural dynamics, inter-Asian connections, and community building in her research and public engagement programs. Dr. Wu is also the convenor of UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative and the co-curator and co-convenor of the UBC Asian Independent Cinema Showcase. Dr. Wu has been selected as a Green College Leading Scholar (2023-2025).
Graduate Students
Susanna Cassisa (Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies)
Photo by Tyler Daniels
Susanna Cassisa is a writer and podcaster from Oxford, Mississippi whose work has been published in the Washington Post and CrimeReads. After earning her B.A. from the University of Mississippi in 2021, Susanna moved to Vancouver to pursue an M.A. in German Studies at UBC. Her writing generally focuses on gender, sexuality, and the way narrative form and media tropes shape the way we understand the world around us. She is currently producing a podcast called Groomer Rumor which dives into the transnational history of the ongoing moral panic that suggests queer people seek to “seduce,” “recruit,” or—most recently—“groom” children.
Andrea Hoff (Department of Language & Literacy Education)
Andrea Hoff (she/her) is a neurodivergent multimedia artist, writer, and PhD candidate in the Department of Language & Literacy Education at UBC. A central focus in her research and doctoral dissertation is youth empowerment in the climate crisis, explored through the craft of comics. Her practice in art and academia is centred on social and environmental justice as they relate to systems and emerging technologies and is situated at the intersection of narrative, technology, and ecology. Andrea is one of the co-founders of Beyond Collective, an Indigenous//settler feminist studio working through comics, research, installation, and performance to challenge colonial narratives and work collectively towards reconciliation. You can find more of her work at https://www.andreahoff.com.
Partner Organization
Peopling the Past Educational Society
The winner of the award to recognize the contributions of a partner organization is the Peopling the Past Educational Society (PtP) in partnership with Dr. Megan Daniels (Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies). Peopling the Past (www.peoplingthepast.com) is a public humanities platform run by seven junior women scholars that hosts free, open-access educational content (podcasts, videos, and blogs) on the archaeology and history of the ancient Mediterranean and western Asia. PtP’s content focuses on the lives and experiences of real people who are often omitted from dominant historical narratives, and provides a platform for young and underrepresented scholars to share their research in accessible formats. Its main objective is thus to foster public and classroom engagement with diverse histories of people often omitted from textbooks and with the voices of scholars often underrepresented in academia.