Marcela Valania

Honorary Research Associate, Sessional Lecturer

Faculty of Management

Office: EME 4141
Email: marcela.valania@ubc.ca

Biography

Since 2014, I have been working at UBC on the strategic planning, design, development, implementation, coordination, delivery and assessment of innovative wine education activities and programming. My work is in collaboration with the Director of the Wine Research Centre (WRC), other WRC colleagues, faculty and staff across UBC campuses, institutional partners in Canada and abroad, the British Columbia wine industry, and interested publics.

My contribution to wine education draws on my experience as instructor on the Master of Management, and on my role as Honorary Research Associate, focusing on the intersection of teaching, research and community engagement. I am also a team member of the Occupations project on the economic history of the Okanagan and the region’s future economic strategy.

In my research, I am especially interested in facilitation and learning processes, and in a multisensory approach to communicating and inquiring, including exploring the different ways in which the visual and other forms of expression can be used for research representation, dissemination, and as a mode of inquiry, to stimulate participation and bring about change. As regards the BC wine territory, those interests are reflected in, for example, a paper in BC Studies (2018) and another in International Journal of Wine Business Research (2021). My research interests are also linked to my experience as an artist. In that capacity, I have curated and contributed to research-based exhibitions as part of outreach activities.

My concerns also focus on how universities can help identify social and economic needs for a region, to address challenges and help regions flourish. In particular, I am interested in processes that connect and integrate the local, national, and global levels, as well as the diverse human activities related to the public, social, and private spheres.