I am delighted to say that I’ve had my appointment as Peter Wall Distinguished Professor renewed for another five-year term.  It promises to be an exciting five years, since we’ve also appointed a new Director, Philippe Tortell.

The Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC is a wonderful place to work, not only because it’s somewhere the boundaries between the arts and sciences are constantly pushed and breached but because it’s also a constant affirmation that truly creative research is also irredeemably social.  It’s not so much a refuge from the modern university (though I’m sure some think of it like that) as a demonstration of what a university could and should be.  We have all sorts of ways to involve people outside UBC in what we do too, as you can see from our website…