About Us

The TAPD program is run by 5 graduate students in the physics and astronomy department at UBC. Learn more about us down below, and check out the sidebar to learn about the Head TAs and Mentor TAs this year!

Stepan Fomichev, Executive Coordinator

PhD, Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics

My long-standing interest in collective, emergent behaviour in large-scale systems composed of many interacting parts has brought me to condensed matter physics, where I study real materials (rare-earth nickelates, polyacetylene) and the model Hamiltonians we use to represent them. As a theorist, I enjoy sitting down with pen and paper (or, more often, a laptop and a command prompt) and working to attract away the most relevant aspects of a given material in order to better understand and predict its behaviour.

As executive coordinator at the TAPD, my role is to organize and facilitate the work of the committee towards designing and running the TA training workshops, Peer Mentoring initiatives, and the Head TA program. As a TA, I have always wanted an opportunity to contribute my ideas and to improve the TA training and teaching experience in the department, and this is why I enjoy being a part of the TAPD. We get a lot of creative freedom in regards to what goes into the training, what initiatives we choose to start or run, and how we organize our own work: I also think of this work as a blueprint for many of the activities we will do in our lives post-PhD, as skills such as event organization, coming up with new training ideas, grant writing and so on are relevant across a wide variety of fields.

Yukiya Saito, Head TA Coordinator

PhD, Computational Nuclear Astrophysics

About half of the chemical elements heavier than iron in the universe are synthesized in explosive astrophysical events such as neutron star merger. My research aims to understand the role of nuclear physics in the heavy element nucleosynthesis, using numerical simulations and machine learning.

My role at the TAPD is Head TA Coordinator. In large first-year physics and astronomy courses with a number of teaching assistants (TAs), it is important that all the students can receive sufficient support for their success. Since the TAs are crucial for providing individual instruction to the students, it is important that the Head TAs make sure all the TAs know what they are doing. My job is to oversee the work of the Head TAs and ensure all the TAs under them are teaching efficiently and effectively. As part of the TAPD, I also contribute to developing workshops for new TAs.

I believe in the importance of developing teaching skills during graduate studies, since no matter where you end up after graduate school, most likely you will be responsible for educating someone. The activities at the TAPD has been giving me numerous opportunities to think about good education and how to actually implement them.

Aaron Kraft, Operations Coordinator

PhD, Experimental Condensed Matter Physics

The first step in studying any new quantum material is growing the quantum material. My research focuses on using a growth technique known as molecular beam epitaxy to grow thin films of materials with interesting electronic and magnetic properties. In my research group, our ultimate goal is to combine this growth technique with scanning tunneling microscopy to study these novel materials with sub-atomic resolution.

My role on the TAPD is operations coordinator. As operations coordinator I focus on running and developing the TA training workshops as well as handling the budget. I also work with the rest of the TAPD on hiring head, mentor, and instructor TAs. My hope is that through the TA training workshops we can share not only best practices for how to TA, but also the importance of TA work.

Cassandra Miller, Communications Coordinator

PhD, Nuclear Medicine Physics

Radionuclide therapies for cancer involve injecting a patient with a radioisotope attached to a pharmaceutical that specifically binds to cancer cells. Radioisotopes used for therapy are beta, alpha, or Auger electron emitters, because these particles can destroy tumour cells as the isotope decays. We would like to be able to determine radiation doses to tumours and organs at risk during these therapies, which we can do by PET or SPECT imaging. However, nuclear medicine imaging requires gamma or positron emitting isotopes, and not all therapeutic isotopes are also suitable for imaging. My research involves testing the validity of using an imaging radiopharmaceutical to predict the dose that a different therapeutic radiopharmaceutical will impart on a patient.

My role on the TAPD is the Communications coordinator, which includes managing written communications for the TAPD, including maintaining the website (hi!), creating a regular newsletter, and managing email communications. I also assist in developing the fall and winter workshops and participate in hiring decisions for Head and Mentor TAs. I’ve always been passionate about teaching, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to not only be a TA in the department, but also to help coordinate the TA program.

Emilie Carpentier, Mentor TA Coordinator

PhD, Medical Physics (Radiation Therapy)

Dynamic tumour tracking is a radiation therapy technique where the radiation beam follows a moving tumour in real time and constantly irradiates it (for example, a liver tumour moving due to a patient’s breathing). My research involves developing 4D treatment planning strategies and dose calculation methods for dynamic tumour tracking treatments.

My role on the TAPD is the Mentor TA Coordinator. The mentor TA program partners incoming TAs with an experienced peer to help build their comfortability and confidence in the classroom. Our team of trained mentors meet with their mentees one-on-one to provide tools and advice that help them become more effective instructors. My role is to coordinate the mentors, organize their training workshops, assign new TA’s a peer mentor, and facilitate anonymized communication between the TAPD and our TAs.

The mentoring program impacts the quality of education in our department. By improving the teaching experience for TA’s and providing them with support, we also improve the learning environment for students. I am looking forward to another year of working with this program.