I am a public sociologist, interdisciplinary community-based researcher and engaged social change theorist whose research engages with the inherent relationality of existence, centering Indigenous and relational theories. If a crisis of disconnect - from ourselves, others and earth – is core to the intersecting eco-social challenges we face in the world today, my work focuses on how to transform individualist ways of being towards collaborative, relational, and eco-centric ways of being at the individual, institutional and societal levels. Relational and collaborative changemaking has been a focus of my work as a scholar and practitioner for over twenty years, having led community-based research with dozens of organizations, institutions and movements – from small NGOs to UN agencies. I believe in theorizing with the world, not about it, and I strive to bring leaders, researchers, agencies and movements from across sectors and disciplines together in new ways to collaboratively co-create change. A sixth-generation uninvited guest of Irish/Scottish/British descent on the ancestral lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples (today also known as Victoria, BC), questions of how to live in good relation with self, others and the earth underpin all that I do.

My work focuses on how we might work collaboratively, and across deep diversity, to transform individualist, silo-ed, and ego-centric ways of being towards relational, eco-centric ways of being. My research is on: youth-centred research (youth exploitation prevention and youth climate movement); engaged, relational theory; community-based, participatory research; decolonizing research methodologies; and disruptive pedagogies. Recent publications are on: engaged, relational theory; decolonization and anti-racism; youth exploitation prevention in Victoria, BC; and arts-based assessments.