Dear Faculty, Staff, Students and Residents,
As you will recall, the Department has been engaged in a recruitment process for a full-time academic faculty position in the area of translational neuropsychiatric research, an opportunity created for Psychiatry through the Faculty of Medicine Academic Renewal Program, intended to support the recruitment of tenure-stream faculty in the area of Translational Science in Medicine.
As the recruitment process has now been completed, I am delighted to share that Dr. William Panenka has been appointed to this position at the rank of Associate Professor, Tenure, effective September 1, 2023. Many of you are already well acquainted with Dr. Panenka, who has held a Partner faculty appointment in the Department since 2013, and was promoted to Associate Professor (Partner) in 2020.
Now as a tenured faculty member, Dr. Panenka will continue his outstanding research program in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), which currently includes a large 5-year CIHR study to understand risk factors and poorer outcomes of TBI and cerebral small vessel disease in a vulnerably housed cohort. He is also involved in several other major CIHR studies in collaboration with investigators from Psychiatry as well as other UBC units, including Psychology, Pathology, and the School of Biomedical Engineering. Further, Dr. Panenka is the founding Medical and Research Lead for the Neuropsychiatry Concussion Clinic within the BC Neuropsychiatry network, and under his supervision, this Clinic has served as an important recruitment site for studies aimed at finding cognitive, imaging, and other biomarkers that will predict outcome and response to treatment in individuals with unresolved symptoms following head trauma.
I am confident that, in joining our full-time faculty, Dr. Panenka will continue to be highly productive and successful as he embarks on this exciting new phase of his academic career. Please join me in warmly congratulating Dr. Panenka and welcoming him to his new academic appointment in the Department.
Sincerely,
Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, MBBS, FRCPC, MRCPsych (UK), MBA (Exec)
Professor and Head, UBC Department of Psychiatry
Director, Institute of Mental Health, UBC
Regional Head and Program Medical Director, VCH/PHC
The UBC Department of Psychiatry Administration Office respectfully acknowledges the land on which we live, work and play is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh).