I am a Canadian researcher and adjunct faculty at Toronto Metropolitan University and Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) on grants investigating the pedagogical affordances of specialized tools, materials, and environments for learning, making, and communicating in domains of skilled practice. I am especially interested in the ways that independent and self-taught practitioners structure, resource, and evidence their own knowledge, skills, and competences and how these practices differ from the formal, institutional models of training, assessment, and certification of regulated professions and trades.   

Research program

My research program investigates the pedagogical affordances of specialised tools, materials, and environments that contribute to tacit, multi-modal learning in authentically and ecologically situated domains of practice. My focus on the material and ecological basis of knowing, communicating, and making, reflects anti-cognitivist James Gibson‘s ecological view of perception as an affordance of environments, substances, and phenomena – rather than an outcome of purely physiological or mental processes. More critically, my work examines how such situated and materially contingent ways of ‘knowing as doing’ have become inconvenient for information-centric and, now, algorithmic schemes of educating-as-content delivery.

Building on my over 20 years of teaching at the secondary, post-secondary, and graduate levels of education, I have observed the negative consequences of info-centric and screen-biassed orientations to curriculum, instruction, and assessment as both a learner and instructor. Paradoxically, these same models, which are often characterized as “innovative” and “accessible,” are largely underwritten by outdated notions of teaching as transmission and content-as-curricula that are favoured for the machine-like “learning” increasingly endorsed for fast credentialing schemes. My work contrasts and compares these indirectly acquired educational products and services with the more experiential, directly acquired, tacit, and materially resourced and evidenced (assessed) learning that is circulated and acquired in domains of authentically situated and skilled practice and which are overseen by actually expert practitioners.

My scholarly research examines how this shift — from learning in process to a transaction of educational products and services– is especially consequential in the context of more tacit, situated, and physically embodied subjects, such as applied arts, sciences, and athletics, that require access to specialised environments, tools, materials (i.e., infrastructure and resources) and actually-expert practitioner-educators. As with the red-listing of endangered crafts, I argue that these categories of risk are similar to the pedagogical “extinction”  of subjects, knowledge, and ways of knowing that have been eliminated from education for the sake of speed and profit.

To this end, my colleagues and I are mobilising knowledge from our study of informal learning in domains of physically embodied and multimodal practice, to develop a pedagogical tool-kit that champions authenticity in learning, teaching, and assessment in an age of artifice. Our work draws on varied domains of craft, arts, and athletic practice to examine how these definitively hands-on and tacit orientations to learning through doing can mitigate the limitations of indirectly acquired, passive, and information-centric models of educating.

Knowledge Mobilisation

Over the past several decades I have mobilised my scholarly knowledge through peer-reviewed academic conferences, symposiums, colloquia, and guest lectures. I have also facilitated many hands-on workshops locally and internationally and participated in smell walks led by Dr Kate McLean in Marseille whose methodology inspired my own explorations of this unique practice with walks and workshops I facilitated in Toronto and Vancouver.

Building on my study of the use of aromatic materials in the contexts of education, communication, and arts and heritage mediation, I have designed and facilitated master classes on sourcing and learning aromatic ingredients as DIY reference standards. I have presented at Brock University’s International Cool Climate Wine Symposium, The Independent Wine Education Guild (IWEG), The Canadian Association of Sommeliers (CAPS), Soif Bar à vin, and guest speaker for wine education certification courses at George Brown’s Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts (CHCA). 

Aroma Inquiry Lab

In 2013, I conceptualised a methodological framework for my doctoral research, which involved a sensory ethnographic study of aromatic materials for learning and cultural mediation [which you can read about here]. This research was the spark that led to the development of the Aroma Inquiry Lab, a satellite project within Toronto Metropolitan University’s Responsive Ecologies lab, which is focused on inquiry-based learning with and through materials, tools, and environments – from the inside out.

In contrast with the neuro-centric and mind-over-matter preoccupation with scent as a kind of Proustian playback device for memories and emotions, the aroma inquiry lab adopts an extra-disciplinary orientation to aromatic learning and making that is not tethered to specific academic or commercial domain (i.e., I do NOT research functional olfaction, sensory perception, or “affective” dimensions of smell). 

This is also reflected in the deliberate choice of the cultural term aroma, as opposed to scientific orientations to olfaction (or the commercially oriented fragrance), which reflects the physically grounded and materially contingent basis of scent as a resource for learning, communicating, and making.

From a pedagogical standpoint, the Aroma Lab is concerned with the kinds of literacies and skills that are acquired with and through materials (and environments) that I call “aroma inquiries.” This orientation emphasizes the kind of knowledge that is directly acquired through production (i.e., skilled practice, learning through doing, etc) as opposed to relating with scent at the site of consumption. The use of the term “inquiry” reflects my research on non-institutional and situated domains of informal and inquiry-based learning.

Practice-informed pedagogy

In addition to my scholarly research on aroma as a missing modality in education and communications, I have spent the past 10 years engaged in both independent and structured study of the material and ecological contingencies of aromatic learning and skilled practice. I have led workshops for academic symposia, Master Classes for the wine and spirits trade, wine education certification courses, and university oenology and viticulture programs. 

My current practice involves conventional, experimental, artisanal, and mixed-media scent applications, from the creation of aromatic reference standards for nose training to technical scent design. These projects include research projects, conference workshops, prototypes, and exhibits. I recently collaborated with the Art Gallery of Ontario to design four unique and historically-themed scents for the Making Her Mark Exhibit, which you can read about in my interview with Foyer Magazine.

Industry Background + Teaching

After completing my undergraduate degree, I studied online writing and information design at Centennial College with an interest in interactive storytelling. For many years I worked as a freelance writer, editor, and content producer, including contributions to the award-winning CBC Digital Archives, international museum exhibits for Toronto’s Mystus Interactus Exhibits, and educational and training content for government and trade clients, along with consulting for the Canadian magazine industry. This experience led to opportunities to teach post-secondary and post-graduate courses in interactive writing, digital journalism, and professional communications at Centennial College’s School of Communications, Media and Design. 

Education

I have a B.A. (Specialist) in English literature from the University of Toronto, and a B.Ed. (Intermediate/Secondary) from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto), and later M.A. and Ph.D. from York University’s joint program in Communications and Culture.  After completing my doctorate, I was awarded a Post-doctoral Fellowship from the Faculty of Education, York University to examine the curriculum and pedagogy associated with aromatic literacy in wine education.

Educational Qualifications

• Ph.D., Communications and Culture, York University (2018)
• M.A., Communication and Culture, York University (2013)
• B.Ed., Bachelor of Education (Intermediate/Secondary), Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto (2007)
• B.A. Hons., Bachelor of Arts, English Literature, University of Toronto (2000)

Additional Training + Certifications

• Natural Perfume Certifications (Introductory and Intermediate), in-studio classes with American perfumer Mandy Aftel (2017-2019) with certification to teach Aftel’s ‘Basic’ natural perfumery class.
• Additional Teaching Qualifications (AQ): Media I and II, York University/Ontario College of Teachers (2009)
• Post-Graduate Certificate in Online Writing and Information Design, Centennial College, School of Communications (2001)
• Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) certified secondary school teacher (Ontario College of Teachers), 2008 [current status: “Inactive/Non-Practicing”]

Press
My work, ideas, perspectives are cited in scholarly articles and books, television, radio, and print media, interviews, and trade blogs.  Please see my speaking page for further detail, or visit my contact page for inquiries related to my research and practice. 

Please use my Contact form for academic and speaking inquiries.