Hi everyone!  If you haven’t met me at a PDA event or at the PDA orientation, my name’s Miranda.  I am a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, and my research interest is to use multi-modality medical imaging as a tool for earlier diagnosis and better treatment stratification for patients with respiratory disease.  Shortly after I began my studies here at UBC, I joined the PDA executive committee where I served for 5 months before being elected co-VP-Social.  Over the last year, together with the PDA, I have planned, advertised and executed research and academic events (3min Postdoc Slam, Postdoc Research Day), and also organized networking events (Whislter ski trip, Christmas Party, BBQs, etc.) to foster interaction and collaboration among UBC postdocs.

Moving forward, I would like to continue our previous President’s initiative to extend the reach of the PDA to postdocs in the arts and humanities, engineering, and other non-life science departments.  As an extension of this goal, my goal is to also extend the reach of the PDA to other off-campus UBC postdocs, and the broader postdoc community in Vancouver.  As an off-campus postdoc at a hospital site, I recognize the importance of being part of the postdoc community for peer support, and would like to provide the opportunity for other postdocs to be part of our community.

I will also continue to expand professional development seminars, workshops and networking opportunities for postdocs.  Our previous President started an important initiative to introduce postdocs to alternative non-academic career paths, and I will continue to support this initiative with panel discussions and workshops.  Other issues, such as the challenges facing international posdocs and women in STEM fields, are of interest to our community, and creating opportunity for discussion will be an important interest of mine this year as well.  Furthermore, I believe all postdocs would benefit from more opportunities to present their research and network at UBC and in the community, and together with the PDA exec team I would love to create more opportunities to do that in the upcoming year.  I look forward meeting you all at our next PDA event!