Dr. Kirby Manià passed away in April 2026. Kirby Manià was an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Coordinated Arts Program and the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media and the Coordinated Arts Program. She received her PhD in English from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa) and held a Master of Arts in Modern Literature and Culture from the University of York (United Kingdom). She has taught courses in the environment, literary studies, and academic writing at universities in South Africa and Canada. Her literary research and creative work focus on the crossover between urban spaces and the environment. She was particularly interested in post-apartheid South African literature(s), postcolonial urban ecology and environmental justice, as well as community engaged learning, and writing pedagogy. She was a co-principal investigator with fellow CAP instructor, Dr Evan Mauro, of a TLEF-funded project that supports student knowledge exchange projects across multiple classrooms at UBC. Recent examples of her scholarly work can be found in The Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, English Studies in Africa, and The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. She also co-edited an eco-urban poetry journal called Sprout (a creative project supported by the non-profit organization, The Nature of Cities).