Congratulations to Dr. J9 Austin, who has been elected president of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics (ISPG)!
Dr. Austin is a professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Medical Genetics, as well as the Canada Research Chair in Translational Psychiatric Genomics. Their research involves studying the impact of genetic counseling for people with psychiatric disorders and their families, and they are currently leading the ACCESS-GC trial, funded by Genome BC, which seeks to embed genetic counsellors (GCs) into family physician clinics, creating a team-based model that delivers enhanced, personalized care.
As the first non-man to serve as president of the society in its 30-year history, Dr. Austin will continue to advocate for broader inclusion at every level of the society for people of diverse backgrounds, ensure the society’s sustainability through financially responsible decision-making, and seek to provide a greater range of benefits for members.
Meet Dr. Walter Sena, a former IMH Marshall Fellow who is developing digital tools for more accurate, data-driven insights in cognitive health! Originally trained in Brazil, his latest project is a groundbreaking Software as Medical Device (SaMD), neurocognition.ai, that uses smartphone-based gaze tracking to objectively monitor cognition. Outside of work, Dr. Sena is embracing life as a new father.
Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?
I am a physician and researcher with a strong interest in cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychiatry. I originally trained in Brazil, where I completed a master’s in neuroscience and a specialization in psychiatry. My background spans both clinical work and research, and I’ve spent the last few years focused on developing digital tools for cognitive assessment. After relocating to Canada, I’ve been involved in research at the University of British Columbia, where I’m working in cognitive neuropsychiatry.
Can you describe what kind of research you are involved in?
My research focuses on understanding how cognitive functions (like memory, attention, and problem-solving) change throughout life, from neurodevelopment to neurodegeneration. My work involves designing advanced neurocognitive tests that use gaze tracking through a smartphone. Essentially, we measure how individuals look at stimuli on a screen while performing these tests, and we use that data to understand more about their cognitive health.
Can you tell us about an interesting project or initiative you are working on?
At the moment, I’m working on a SaMD called neurocognition.ai, designed to conduct cognitive assessments online. What’s exciting is that we’re developing a platform that, in the future, will use AI for shared decision-making, helping physicians provide the best evidence-based treatments for their patients. Additionally, having more accurate and reliable cognitive assessments could significantly improve research on treatments, such as new Alzheimer’s antibodies, where clinical trials often use subjective cognitive scales as primary endpoints, which can lack objectivity.
What aspect of your work do you enjoy the most, or find most exciting?
I really enjoy the innovative aspect of my work, particularly how we can apply cutting-edge technology like training smartphone-based gaze-tracking through machine learning to solve real-world problems in cognitive health. It’s exciting to see how these tools can potentially improve patient care by allowing for earlier and more accurate monitoring of cognitive health. I also find it fulfilling to work on developing a product that focuses on regulatory approvals from Health Canada and the FDA, with the long-term goal of improving health policies and reducing costs for healthcare systems.
What are your interests and hobbies outside of work?
Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family, especially now that I’ve just welcomed a baby girl named Luna! I’m also an entrepreneur and love exploring new tech developments. I strive to maintain a healthy work-life balance, so you’ll often find me snowboarding in Whistler during the winter.
If you are an IMH member and would like to share more about yourself and your research with the community, please contact Megan Rollerson, Manager, Communications and Partnerships, at megan.rollerson@ubc.ca.
As you all are aware, the UBC Psychiatry Department is committed to fostering an inclusive, respectful and safe learning and work environment that values diversity and is free of harassment and discrimination. As a part of this commitment, the Department conducts environmental scans of the learning and workplace of our programs/sites with support from the Faculty of Medicine’s Respectful Environments, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) office. Last year, such a scan was conducted for the Prince George Track of the Residency Program.
The plan is to conduct a similar scan of all the other tracks within the residency program over the next few years. The scan of the Fraser Track is currently in process and will be concluding shortly. The information collected will help us capture strengths and challenges and inform opportunities for developing strategies to address any issues identified in a timely manner, which will thus foster safe and respectful learning and workplace environments for everyone.
Robyn Campol, the Learning Environment Advisor within the Office of REDI, is conducting the scan of the Fraser Track Program. As we have indicated before, the most accurate assessment of the learning and workplace environment is only possible with active participation and feedback from all of you. While your participation is voluntary, we would be most grateful if each of you could meet with Robyn to share your experiences.
We encourage all faculty and residents to meet with Robyn. These will be one-on-one meetings on Zoom, and they will be approximately 45 minutes in duration. Residents will have protected time to meet with Robyn. The information you share will be confidential, and the report will include general themes only and will not disclose or reveal your identity.
We recognize that Residents or staff may fear retaliation for participating in this process. We want to reiterate and assure you that the Faculty of Medicine and the Department/Program will not tolerate any retaliation, directly or indirectly, against anyone who provides information about an allegation of mistreatment, or otherwise participates in the processes to address mistreatment.
If you would like to participate, please email Robyn Campol atlearningenvironment.advisor@ubc.caas soon as possible, as the interview portion of the scan will be concluded shortly. The deadline to contact Robyn is Friday, January 31, 2025. Robyn will then schedule a meeting based on your availability.
We hope that you will consider becoming involved as, without your help, we are unable to adequately assess the track and make any necessary changes to ensure continued improvement in the safety of the learning environment and workplace. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or Robyn Campol directly.
Warm regards,
Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, MBBS, FRCPC, MRCPsych, MBA Professor and Head, UBC Department of Psychiatry Director, Institute of Mental Health, UBC Regional Head and Program Medical Director, VCH/PHC
Dr. Irfan Khanbhai MD, FRCPC Clinical Associate Professor, UBC Department of Psychiatry Program Director, UBC Department of Psychiatry Postgraduate Education Program Interim Associate Head, Postgraduate Education and Continuing Professional Development
We 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) Nations.
The CentileBrain platform (centilebrain.org) provides a tool for pinpointing meaningful deviations in brain structure by offering normative models analogous to growth charts in medicine. This initiative involved extensive benchmarking to optimize algorithms, select covariates, and validate longitudinal stability. The CentileBrain team has empirically demonstrated the broad applicability of these sex-specific models, ensuring that brain morphometry assessments are accurate and reliable across diverse populations. In this webinar, Dr. Ruiyang Ge will provide an introduction to normative modeling and the CentileBrain models’ applications in neuroimaging and psychiatry research. The session will include a hands-on demonstration of how to implement CentileBrain models in your research.
Speaker
Dr. Ruiyang Ge
Research Associate, UBC Department of Psychiatry and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health Director, Translational Neuroimaging Education Program
Dr. Ruiyang Ge is a Research Associate in the Department of Psychiatry and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on developing and applying advanced computational methods to address key challenges in psychiatry and brain disorders. Dr. Ge has authored numerous papers published in leading journals, including The Lancet Digital Health, American Journal of Psychiatry, Molecular Psychiatry, and NeuroImage. He also serves as an editor for several psychiatry research journals, such as Mental Health Science and NPJ Mental Health Research. He is the lead Data Scientist of the CentileBrain Initiative and founding director of the Translational Neuroimaging Educational Program (www.translational-neuro.org).
As you are aware, the VCH/PHC Regional Psychiatry Grand Rounds are now the UBC Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds and are accessible via Zoom to all Department members across the province. Grand Rounds are held the first Tuesday of every month (unless otherwise stated), from 8:30 am to 9:30 am.
We are excited to announce our first session of 2025 will be held on January 7: CANMAT Depression Guidelines Update – Deep Divepresented by UBC Department of Psychiatry Professor and BC Leadership Chair in Depression Research, Dr. Raymond Lam.
A single registration link is available for all 2025 Grand Rounds:
For Outlook users: Simply double-click the downloaded file to add the events. *Please note, the events may open as a new calendar -simply drag or copy them to your preferred calendar
For other calendar apps: Open the file with your preferred calendar application
The Grand Rounds are a self-approved group learning activity (Section 1) as defined by the Maintenance of Certification program of The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
A monthly film series promoting professional and community education on issues pertaining to mental health and illness. Presented by The Cinematheque and the Institute of Mental Health, UBC Department of Psychiatry. Screenings are generally held on the third Wednesday of each month at The Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St, Vancouver, BC.
Inay
Canada 2024 (56 min.) Director: Theo Loo Wednesday, January 15, 2025 @ 7:00pm The Cinematheque (1131 Howe St)
Film Description
In Inay (which means “mama” in Tagalog), Vancouver-based filmmaker Thea Loo compassionately examines the legacy of Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program and its lasting psychological impact on the two people closest to her: her husband Jeremiah (also the film’s cinematographer), and her close friend Shirley. Despite offering economic opportunities and paths to permanent residency, such employment programs for years separated mothers from their children, creating enduring emotional consequences. Through intimate conversations and candid self-reflection, both Jeremiah and Shirley confront difficult truths about their childhoods. By delicately weaving their personal stories alongside the structural issues of immigration policies, Loo offers a path towards healing and understanding for many Filipino Canadians grappling with the long-term effects of family separation, reunification, and the struggle of being caught between two cultures. Ultimately, Inay is both personal and universal in its approach, expertly illuminating the complexity of mood disorders such as depression and showing how migration and labour are significant social determinants of health.
“A moving film, Inay is full of raw moments that illustrate the trauma that can exist as a consequence of the live-in caregiver program … [The film] puts a human face on the complicated relationship between Canada and the Philippines.” – Gail Johnson, Stir
Post-screening Discussion:
Post-screening discussion with Thea Loo and Jeremiah Reyes.
Thea Loo is a producer and director from Vancouver, BC. Her work spans several successful short films such as No More Parties (2020), which was programmed at Sundance in 2022. Her debut feature documentary Inay premiered in New York City at the Asian American International Film Festival and won the Arbutus Award for Best BC Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Jeremiah Reyes is a multifaceted filmmaker based in Vancouver, BC. Since graduating from BCIT’s Video Production and Editing program, he has worked in post-production as an online and dailies editor. His short films, which he shoots, edits, and scores himself, have played at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival and The Polygon Gallery. Inay is his first feature documentary as director of photography and composer.
Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, the Series Director of Frames of Mind and a Clinical Professor in the UBC Department of Psychiatry.
Want to be a regular at Frames of Mind screenings on the third Wednesday of every month? Subscribe to the email list and be the first in line for tickets!
The UBC Department of Psychiatry will be funded yearly for 1 Re-entry Residency Position in Psychiatry for the 2025/2026 academic year.
This re-entry residency position comes with a 3-year Return of Service (ROS) contract with the Ministry of Health. This year, the ROS is anticipate to be completed in the Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia.
The application deadline for 2025/2026 is January 13, 2025. Please review the full posting for this position for additional information regarding eligibility requirements and the application process.
For full details on the ROS commitment, please see the re-entry ROS contract templates and policy available on the Ministry of Health’s Re-entry webpage. Training for the Fraser ROS position will occur in the Fraser Psychiatry PGE Track for PGY2 and 3 with years 4 and 5 being flexible for elective training opportunities anywhere in the province, in Canada and even abroad if approved.
With 2024 drawing to a close, I wish to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to each of you for your many valuable contributions, and celebrate our remarkable achievements this year as a department.
The targets outlined in our 2020-2025 Strategic Plan guided us through half a decade of growth and served as reliable benchmarks to measure our successes. I am delighted to note that as we approach the end of this plan and begin preparing a refreshed 2025-2030 Strategic Plan, we can confidently say we have achieved most of the concrete goals that were set before us. This is a testament to our collective dedication, focus and hard work.
As we look forward, we remain committed to expanding our research capacity at UBC Vancouver and across our distributed sites, and have recruitments in progress in the areas of Concurrent Disorders, Data Science, as well as in the Northern Medical Program, Fraser Program and Vancouver Island. Building on our 2023 momentum, we launched a second successful round of our Stimulus Grant program and the seventh year of our IMH Marshall Fellows Program. On the educational front, we welcomed more Psychiatry postgraduate students for 2024/2025 into our programs than ever before, a trend we look forward to continuing into the future.
Additionally, the 2023 departmental internal review, conducted by a panel of FoM reviewers, presented a valuable opportunity for us to track our many milestones over the last several years, reflect upon the state of the Department, and take a closer look at the opportunities and challenges of our academic environment. In response, we have taken meaningful steps to address the recommendations, including the coalescing of the Resident and Faculty EDI Committees into a unified Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism (EDIA) Committee, establishing an Indigenous Strategies Committee, gathering feedback on the new website to continue improving the visitor experience, and conducting a Faculty, Staff and Graduate Students Mistreatment Reporting Survey, with a Resident Wellness Survey expected in the new year. Additionally, as we continue building clinical faculty support and engagement, we announced the redesignation of the VCH-PHC Regional Rounds as the UBC Psychiatry Grand Rounds beginning in January 2025, extending access to faculty across the province, and our Awards and Recognition Committee have established terms of reference and begun developing processes to identify and proactively promote faculty for nomination.
As you review this year’s highlights in our newsletter, I hope you share a sense of pride in our collective accomplishments. As I embark on my second term as Department Head, I remain indebted to our four Associate Heads and Executive team, who have been indispensable to our leadership team and, of course, to all of our outstanding Department members without whom our achievements thus far would not have been possible. With your continued engagement and ongoing support, I look forward to our continued collaboration in the years ahead.
Once again, I wish to thank you all and wish you a safe, happy and well-deserved rest this holiday season!
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).
