Right now I mostly study the politics of intimate environments including the production of place or thinking about how state programs and policies influence the everyday and the vernacular, how communities can talk back to that through use and social reproduction alongside organizing, and then asking what are the methods that we can use to better understand these relationships.

I examine these broad questions through a few main lens: immigration, incorporation and citizenship in place, and environmental justice and urban health.

A self-declared methodological polyglot, I combine quantitative and qualitative spatial analysis with participant observation, visual (and sensory) studies, archival research, and participatory methods.

All of my work is strongly informed by both feminist and critical perspectives, and so praxis – bringing together ideas, and action – and a focus on using methods and technology to promote increased social justice are also important links between all of my research.

I am in the beginning middle stages of two projects focused on place, citizenship and the politics of intimate landscapes:

• Rural Citizenship Formation – examining migration and citizen formation for young adults and international migrants in the Parkland Region in Treaty 2 and Treaty 4 territories in Manitoba.
• Practicing Landscapes at Home – examining the impact of the ongoing drought, and new California policies on the environmental behaviours of a diverse set of households in Sacramento CA.

Starting research around sound as a spatial methods.

I am also continuing to collaborate on several projects examining immigration and the impact of increased access to and opportunities to produce well-being and environmental data.

• Putting Youth on the Map
• #OurChangingClimate :  Join the conversation  (or on ‘the gram’)
• Local Migrant Regulariztion

Past research projects include:

• a comparison of the place-based incorporation of immigrant communities in predominantly low-income neighbourhoods in Denmark, the US and Canada.
  • Spatial patterns of international migrant resident settlement and incorporation in Winnipeg Manitoba.
    DOI:10.1002/psp.2060
  • New Migrant Cities
  • Negotiating Places of Incorporation: Comparing the Practices of Community Development Organisations in Immigration and Incorporation. DOI:10.1080/1369183X.2015.1022515

  • Spatial Patterns of the Settlement and Incorporation of International Migrant Residents in Winnipeg Manitoba, Canada.

• an evaluation of the Cornell Center for Teaching Excellence: Graduate Teaching Certificate Program
• using GIS to evaluate exposure to urban environmental hazards: Using GIS to compare the density of stores selling tobacco and alcohol youth environmental exposure to tobacco and alcohol retail
• studies of policies and programs to increase community food security
• using GIS to assess equity in urban health resources
• a study of resident activism within public housing in Toronto