Recent Faculty & Staff Hires

Dr. Berg joins the Department of Physics from the Forschungszentrum Jülich in Munich, where she worked as an instrument scientist. Her formal studies were undertaken at the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark.  Dr. Berg’s research is in applied physics, with a particular focus on neutron scattering techniques and molecular dynamics simulations in soft matter physics and material science. Dr. Berg is also the University of Regina's Fedoruk Chair in Neutron Imaging.

Dr. Chibwe joins our Faculty as a research scientist in the Institute of Environmental Change and Society (IECS).  She is also an adjunct professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department.  Originally from Zambia, Dr. Chibwe earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Colorado College, and PhD in analytical chemistry from Oregon State University.  Most recently, she was a physical chemist at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).  Her research interests focus on characterizing emerging and novel organic contaminants in the environment.

Dr. Vanessa Figueiredo completed her PhD at the University of British Columbia and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Alberta. Her research primarily focuses on human-computer interaction, with a special interest in leveraging machine learning techniques to design educational technologies that adapt to students’ cognitive abilities.

Dr. Graham joins the Faculty of Science as an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department after a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at McMaster University. She completed her Ph.D. with Dr. Somers at the University of Regina in 2018. Dr. Graham specializes in bioinformatics and enjoys using computational tools to unravel complex biological questions. She is an enthusiastic and committed educator who focuses on student-driven learning.

Dr. Khairalla earned his PhD from the School of Molecular Medical Sciences, Nottingham University, UK, and has teaching experience from: Red Deer College, the University of Regina, Coast Mountain College, and McMaster University. He is a keen instructor who enjoys connecting lecture topics to real-world applications, helping students develop strong problem-solving skills, and supporting students achieve their goals.

Dr. Kamyar Khodamoradi joins the Department of Computer Science from the University of British Columbia, where he held a research appointment. Following his Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in a number of universities across Canada and Europe. Dr. Khodamoradi’s research interests are broadly in theoretical computer science, with a particular focus on approximation algorithms and combinatorial optimization. He studies various intractable optimization problems where the goal is to devise algorithms that produce near-optimal solutions with mathematically provable approximation guarantees.

Dr. Marc MacKinnon is an organic chemist who joined the University of Regina’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry after a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON. He completed his Ph.D. at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, NL. His research focuses on synthesizing and developing functional conjugated molecules, organic methodology and medicinal chemistry.

Dr. James McVittie is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. He completed his undergraduate degree in mathematics and statistics at the University of Toronto and his graduate degrees (M.Sc. and Ph.D.) from McGill University. His research interests include the development of survival analysis modelling techniques for combined cohort data and measurement error problems in partially observed time to event data.

Dr. Md. Sami Uddin recently joined the University of Regina as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science. He completed his Ph.D. from the University of Saskatchewan and was working as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at McGill University before moving to Regina. Dr. Uddin's research falls under the broad category of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Primarily, he focuses on users' rapid development of expertise with computer interfaces, but also explores people's physical and cognitive abilities to design better interaction facilities and graphical interfaces that support users become experts quickly.

Dr. Vujanovic joins the Department of Physics, bringing with him his experience from two postdoctoral fellowships at the Ohio State University and Wayne State University and his PhD at McGill University.  His research focus is studying nuclear media under extreme conditions, such as those reached during the first few microseconds after the Big Bang. The high temperatures of the Big Bang can be recreated in the laboratory, specifically inside of high-energy heavy-ion collisions, taking place at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Large Hadron Collider at CERN.