I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Faculty of Education and the Institute for Research on Digital Learning (IRDL) at York University. My postdoctoral research investigates multimodal, ecological and materials-centric approaches to aroma learning and literacy within the largely ‘text-bound’ paradigm of wine education. This research not only addresses itself to established gaps in our understanding of the selection, role and applied uses of aroma materials as an educational resource but how it can be constituted as a multimodal curriculum and pedagogy that reflects the lived identities, needs and interests of learners. More critically, this research contributes practical methodological approaches to researching and documenting the ecological, environmental, structural and material contingencies that afford multimodal interactions with aroma.
More generally, my program of research investigates multimodal resources for informal learning inquiry, DIY making and interaction design through frameworks of critical pedagogy, sensory ethnography, ecological perception, multimodal analysis, and ‘DIY making’ as research praxis. My doctoral research in Grasse, France investigated the ‘hidden curricula‘ of aroma culture through a grounded qualitative investigation of socioculturally, structurally, and ecologically situated approaches to materials-centric knowing, doing and making from the margins, rather than the centre, of dominant psychological paradigms of sensory perception. Through this research I developed a novel methodological intervention of ‘tangible inquiry’ in order to account for forms of data, and practices involving materials, that exceed existing sensory, affective, and social semiotic interpretive strategies.
Education and professional background
Prior to my academic activities, I wrote and produced award-winning interactive content for national media, government, museums and industry for over a decade. In 2008, I received my Intermediate/Senior teaching degree from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE/University of Toronto), with a focus on inner city education. I then joined the Toronto Board of Education as a secondary school teacher, where I taught in high risk, alternative and mainstream high schools throughout urban Toronto. I have also, more recently, designed, developed and taught courses for Ryerson University’s school of early childhood studies. My educational philosophy is informed by long-term commitments to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), with an emphasis on critically embodied, skilled, self-reflexive and creative learning outcomes that have real-world application and value.
During my graduate studies I worked as a research assistant with Ryerson University’s Experiential Design and Gaming Environments Lab (EDGE Lab). I continue to work with Ryerson’s Responsive Ecologies lab (RE/Lab) where I contribute to the conceptualization and development of inclusive multimodal learning environments, interactions and tools. In 2014, I created the Aroma Inquiry lab within the Responsible Ecologies Lab as an informal learning environment focused on DIY learning inquiry.
As a speaker, I have presented on a broad range of topics at academic and industry conferences and colloquia internationally. I am a regular guest lecturer and workshop facilitator at Ryerson and York universities and more recently, George Brown College, IWEG and CAPS where I share my approaches to aroma learning for wine and spirits students and sommeliers in training.
Education
Ph.D., Communications and Culture, York University (2017)
M.A., Communication and Culture, York University (2014)
B.Ed., Intermediate/Secondary, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto (2008)
B.A. Hons., English Literature, University of Toronto (2001)
Awards
2017-18 York Postdoctoral Fellowship
2014-17 Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship
Professional memberships
Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE)
The Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (CACS)
(Associate member) Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers (CAPS)