Two UBC Computer Science professors appointed Canada Research Chair
Dr. Caroline Lemieux and Dr. Xin Tang from UBC’s Department of Computer Science are recognized as emerging global leaders in the computer science field
Assistant Professors Dr. Caroline Lemieux and Dr. Xin Tang have been appointed as new Canada Research Chairs, as announced by the Government of Canada. They are two of five newly appointed Chairs in the Faculty of Science. The appointments are part of 14 new or renewed Chairs at UBC this year.
The Canada Research Chair Program is part of Canada’s strategy to invest in research and development. The program provides up to $311 million of funding each year to attract and retain diverse researchers of the highest calibre and to continue supporting academic excellence in Canadian postsecondary institutions. Researchers appointed as Chairs help strengthen Canada’s research ecosystem and train the next generation of skilled researchers.
Dr. Lemieux has been appointed as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Software Testing and Analysis.
"I'm thrilled and honoured by this new appointment," says Dr. Lemieux. "Software is now so intertwined with our lives, and we just hope it does not have security or correctness issues. My group builds software testing and analysis tools that help developers find those issues before that software makes it into our lives."
Her research group focuses on tools that detect bugs in our software. In particular, she develops better fuzz testing tools, which send random inputs and observe the behaviour of the software. Through an iterative process, these tools find instances that crash the software, pinpointing vulnerability in its security. She focuses on making automatic testing tools faster and more precise so that software can protect our most sensitive data, such as our health or banking information.
Dr. Xin Tang, who is part of both the Department of Computer Science and the Michael Smith Laboratories, has been appointed as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Computational Cell Biology.
“For me, this nomination is both an honour and a responsibility,” says Dr. Tang. “It recognizes the potential of AI approaches to transform biology and improve human health, and offers me the opportunity to pursue long-term, high-risk ideas that could fundamentally change how we study cells and disease.”
Dr. Tang develops AI models to uncover the fundamental principles of life at the single-cell level. By integrating large-scale biological data, his lab investigates how cellular aging alters biological systems, how cancer escapes immune surveillance, how Alzheimer’s disease develops and progresses, and how neural activity can be decoded and connected with computers. His long-term vision is to create virtual cells, AI-driven digital models coupled with active-learning frameworks, that can guide experiments and accelerate the discovery of new therapies.