Professor Karen Cheung. Photo by: Clare Kiernan
Biomedical Engineering and ECE Professor Karen Cheung has recently been nominated for the 2020 YWCA Women of Distinction Award, in the Research, the Sciences & Technology Category.
The esteemed award is recognized nationally and honours extraordinary women leaders, while highlighting YWCA programs and services that improve the lives of thousands of people each year across Metro Vancouver.
Karen Cheung’s research areas are in Biomedical Technologies and Emerging Micro/Nano Technologies, and include lab-on-a-chip systems for cell culture and characterization, inkjet printing for tissue engineering, and implantable neural interfaces. She is also a member of both the BioMEMS and Microsystems and Nanotechnology research groups.
Part of the YWCA event involves a Connecting the Community Award, in which the nominee who gets the most votes will get to support $10,000, donated by Scotiabank, to a community program of her choice.
Cheung’s chosen program is Early Learning and Care. “As a biomedical engineering professor, I see firsthand how eager our students are to gain the skills they will use to transform lives in emerging areas of medicine. I choose to support early learning because childhood science and engineering education is essential to give young children the fun, engaging activities that empower them to see themselves as problem solvers,” she says.
The 37th annual YWCA Women of Distinction Award ceremony will be held on May 11, 2020 at the JW Marriott Parq Vancouver. Leading up to this event, we ask you to support Karen Cheung’s nomination in her campaign for the Connecting the Community Award. Voters can vote once per day from March 4 to April 24, 2020.
Dr. Jim McEwen, UBC ECE graduate, has kindly offered to sponsor a table for UBC’s Biomedical Engineering Student Team (BEST) members at the upcoming award ceremony if voting is successful. This is an exciting opportunity to celebrate and support incredible women in engineering, while making a positive impact right here in Vancouver.