about

I’m a Canadian (and sometimes Australian) based researcher, educator, game designer and community organizer. Although I wear many hats (both literal and figurative!) my work is primarily focused on the internet and gaming in terms of privacy, autonomy, youth, space and DIY/maker culture.

I’ve appeared on MTV, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), NPR and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and in the Globe and Mail, Spacing Magazine, and La Presse and have presented my work at a wide range of international academic, government and industry conferences including SXSWi, NXNEi, Netsquared, DIY Citizenship and Internet Research.

Research and Teaching
I’m currently a Research Associate at the new Experiential Design and Gaming Environments (EDGE) Lab at Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada) and a PhD candidate in the Department of Internet Studies at Curtin University (Perth, Australia). My advisers are Helen Merrick, Matthew Allen, Jason Nolan and Philip Moore.

My thesis is a unique ethnographic study (that was carried out in both physical and virtual space) of a community of 20-something Facebook users, which provides a nuanced and deeper understanding of privacy attitudes and behaviours in the age of Facebook. Drawing on science studies and STS, my thesis also connects the historically rooted philosophies and ideologies of the Bay Area in California (such as radical transparency, techno optimism and cybernetics) with the architecture of privacy in social media. This connection is critical in understanding privacy design yet is almost always missed in its the assessment and enhancement. With Jason Nolan at the EDGE Lab, I’m researching privacy and autonomy in censorware and MMOs for kids. We demonstrated that most commercial efforts to maintain the safety of kids actually compromises their privacy and safety in other ways.

I’m guest faculty at the CFC Media Lab, where I teach social media and internet culture. Before that, I taught Internet Studies at Curtin University.

I have an honours degree from the University of Toronto in Semiotics & Communication Theory and Philosophy (double major), and I’m a graduate of the CFC Media Lab‘s Interactive Art and Entertainment Programme (formally Habitat).

Pervasive Games and Community Building
I’m the co-founder of the award-winning, Toronto-based Atmosphere Industries, a nonprofit game design studio that makes pervasive games for positive change, as well as an Associate at Six to Start. Atmosphere’s latest effort, the critically-acclaimed Gentrification: The Game is a celebration of public space which encourages players to mischievously hack their environments. Gentrification has been invited to festivals around the world, including Toronto, London and Berlin and won Best use of Tech and Best of Fest 2010 at Come Out and Play in New York. We also host recess.to, a monthly community forum for experimental games in Toronto.

I founded of PrivacyCampTO, Canada’s first privacy unconference series funded by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Ryerson’s EDGE Lab and the Mozilla Foundation. The event is an open forum to discuss privacy issues that anyone can attend and contribute to. The event is part of a larger, loose collective of international PrivacyCamps.

Previously, I worked with a number of high tech community organisations and NGOs doing social media engagement and research, including the youth-focused TakingITGlobal.

I’m also passionate about holistic and Eastern medicine, organic and community supported agriculture (I’m a member of the amazing Cutting Veg CSA), gender equity, geek feminism, LGBTQ rights, public space, free speech, public broadcasting and compassionate and ethical treatment of animals (I volunteer for Annex Cat Rescue and I’m a big fan of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine).