UBC is pleased to announce the very first honoree of the Dr. Ken Denike Award.

Thanks to the generous creation of an endowment by alumnus Dr. Luigi G. (Joe) Sulmona and named in honour of Dr. Ken Denike, Assistant Professor Emeritus at UBC Geography, the $3,500 annual award is open to students across UBC who demonstrate an interest in the fields related to urban and global transportation, connectivity and mobility, and — importantly — a commitment to an interdisciplinary approach within these themes.

In considering potential candidates, UBC constituted a Committee with colleagues from the School of Community and Regional Planning in the Faculty of Applied Sciences, Political Science in the Faculty of Arts. Everyone on the Committee agreed that Uly Workman, an outstanding third-year undergraduate majoring in
Political Science (with Honours) and with advanced coursework in Urban Studies, is the kind of student whose interests and achievements help add to the intergenerational mosaic in the interdisciplinary study of urban systems, local and regional mobility, and public policy.

Uly’s Honours thesis, “High-Speed Rail or Slow-Speed Fail? Affluent NIMBYism and Transit Megaproject Opposition,” develops an astute analysis of intra-urban
and inter-urban locational conflicts in transit system expansion route selection decisions – focusing on 1) Metro Vancouver’s SkyTrain, 2) the San Francisco-San Jose section of the California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) system, and 3) South East Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA’s) Norristown extension to King of Prussia. With a blend of media discourse analysis and scrutiny of policy documents and litigation, Uly examines local events and debates within the context of state/provincial and federal policy priorities. The work offers fascinating insights on the ever- evolving ways that capital, infrastructure, and policy continue to reshape urban space – and the
ways transportation remakes the experience of space and time within the complex, multiply-scaled commuting fields that define contemporary global city-regions.

Congratulations, Uly!