Dr. Martha C. Piper was the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia. She held the position since 1997 and was the 11th person and the first woman to do so. Having been born in Lorain, Ohio, she is also the first person born outside of Canada to have held the position, although she has Canadian citizenship and was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 2002. Her contract with UBC stipulated a salary of $350,000 plus incentive payments of up to $50,000 per year upon meeting the performance goals set by the Board of Governors.^*

Dr. Stephen Toope replaced Piper as president of the University of British Columbia on July 1, 2006.

Education and career

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Dr. Piper holds a B.Sc. in Physical Therapy from the University of Michigan (1967), an M.A. in Child Development from the University of Connecticut (1970) and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University (1979). After her Ph.D., Piper was the director of McGill's School of Physical and Occupational Therapy until 1985 when she became the dean of the University of Alberta's Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine. In 1993 she was made the same university's vice president of Research, and also External Affairs starting in 1995.

Academic honours and awards

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B.Sc. degree with academic distinction; Mortar Board; Health Student Ph.D. Fellowship, Health and Welfare Canada

D.Sc. (Honorary), May 1998, McGill University

LL.D. (Honorary), May 1999, Dalhousie University

LL.D. (Honorary), November 2001, University of Toronto

D.Sc. (Honorary), October 2002, University of Western Ontario

LL.D. (Honorary), December 2003, the University of Melbourne

LL.D. (Honorary), October 2005, the University of Saskatchewan

LL.D. (Honorary), June 2006, University of Alberta

External links

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• Martha Piper's biography on UBC's website.

Canadian university and college chief executives | Members of the Order of British Columbia | Officers of the Order of Canada | McGill University alumni | University of British Columbia faculty