Giebelhaus Lab @ UVic

About:

I am an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Victoria (UVic), having started July 1st, 2025. UVic is located in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. I grew up in Kelowna, British Columbia, and always dreamed of calling BC home after graduate school. I am extremely grateful to live in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

I completed my PhD in Chemistry at the University of Alberta (UofA) in Dr. James Harynuk's group and The Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC). During my PhD I combined bench-top analysis with novel computational approaches to better use metabolomics to understand human interactions with our environment. Additionally, in April 2021 I was awarded the NSERC Canadian Graduate Scholarship - Masters (CGS-M), and in April 2023 I was awarded the CIHR CGS-D to support my doctoral work at the University of Alberta. In January 2024 I was awarded a Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement (CGS-MSFSS), which I used to travel to the University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, where I was a visiting scholar in the Analytical Chemistry laboratory headed by Dr. Jan Christensen. I was also awarded the 2025 Ryan Harris by the CSC. The Ryan-Harris is awarded to the top Canadian PhD graduate in Analytical Chemistry annually.

Prior to starting my graduate work at UofA, I completed my BSc (Hons.) at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan (UBC-O) campus in 2021. My interest in metabolomics was first sparked during my undergrad while researching in Dr. Susan Murch's plantSMART laboratory, where I worked on targeted and untargeted LC-MS-based metabolomics approaches for the analysis of phytohormones. While at UBC-O I was awarded two NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA) and an Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science Undergraduate Research Award (URA). I also served as president of the Chemistry Course Union, hosting the 2019 Western Canadian Undergraduate Chemistry Conference (WCUCC).

In my spare time I enjoy hiking, cycling, camping, fishing, skiing, or playing a round of golf.

About:

Kuljit Kaur, a Master of Science Candidate in the Giebelhaus research group is originally from Mwanza Tanzania and has completed her Undergraduate degree from Cape Breton University (CBU) in 2020 with Honours in Chemistry.

Kuljit started her chemistry research career at CBU in 2017 in Bierenstiel Research Group for 8 months under Prof. Matthias Bierenstiel working on Birch Bark Oil project which is now a commercial skin care company known as Maskwiomin. She then worked with Prof. Stephanie MacQuarrie’s lab for 2 years on various material chemistry projects which then went on to complete her honours thesis under the supervision of Prof. MacQuarrie on Applications of Crab Char for the treatment of Acidic Mine Wastewater; co-supervised by Prof. Martin Mkandawire. In July 2020, she was also awarded Silver medal in recognition of the highest academic standing in Chemistry by Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC).

Post graduation, Kuljit went on to work in the Pharmaceutical Industry at a local Maritime Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (cDMO) called BIOVECTRA Inc. (now a part of Agilent Technologies) located in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. While at this company, she held the positions of a Lab technician in the Process Science-Complex Chemistry department where she was involved in synthesizing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and scale up to manufacturing scale and later on promoted to Process Development Scientist in the Analytical Department where she was involved in various project method development, qualification and other analytical testing techniques to support the process science groups. During this time, she gained intensive hands-on experience with various analytical equipment such as HPLC, UPLC, U/HPLC-MS, GC-HSS, Fragment analysis, Ribogreen testing, Karl Fisher Water Content, DSC-TGA, NMR and IR.

About:

I am a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Victoria and am pursuing a BSc in Physics and Biochemistry. Naturally, I am interested in interdisciplinary scientific research and the application of math to the physical and biological sciences. The opportunity to use chromatography and chemometrics to answer biological questions in the Giebelhaus lab is a very exciting one, and I am also very interested in studying our interaction with the environment via metabolomics. My current project addresses common issues seen in multidimensional chromatographic data such as skewed, rotated, and irregular peaks; I am developing methods to determine peak shape in 2D separations. In my free time, I enjoy staying active, whether it be through running, swimming, going to the gym, or exploring Vancouver Island via hiking and backpacking.

About:

I am TBD.