School of Education

In 2015 I completed my PhD in Education at the University of Glasgow where I was very fortunate to have the expert and tremendously caring supervision of Professor Evelyn Arizpe and Professor Alison Phipps. During my doctoral studies, I had the opportunity to work with Professor Arizpe and a group of researchers on a project called Visual Journeys, that addressed refugee experience and offered welcome to newly arrived students through the use of critical children’s literature and visual methods in classrooms. This research experience and opportunities to publish with the team was not only invaluable to my academic career, but also a joy and highlight of my experience at the University of Glasgow. My dissertation considered the use of critical picturebooks to address colonisation and decolonisation (with a focus on Canadian contexts). This project involved fieldwork and workshops with Indigenous communities on the west coast of British Columbia. The atmosphere in the University of Glasgow’s School of Education fostered critical and creative methods and innovative, interdisciplinary research which set a strong foundation for my future work.

Following the completion of my PhD, I served as the Chief Curriculum Developer for the University of Victoria’s Co-operative Education program. Here I audited curriculum across disciplines, designed modules on community engaged learning, and worked with the University’s Learning and Teaching centre to develop and train academic staff on pedagogical frameworks. In this role I also helped to develop and facilitate the first Social Innovation program, in which students gained the skills to work with important local initiatives (such as Indigenous social housing projects) as a part of their co-operative education degree. In addition to this position, I worked on local Indigenous food security initiatives on North Vancouver Island which made use of visual methods and centred around intergenerational and place-based pedagogies.

In 2017 I started a permanent position as Lecturer in Education Studies at Liverpool Hope University, where I have had the opportunity to research the Schools of Sanctuary movement (carrying out research with Liverpool primary schools) and Initial Accommodation provision (carrying out research in Liverpool’s city centre). This research examines schools’ approaches to teaching on refugee experience, and supporting the resettlement of new arrivals. I am also currently an Investigator on ‘Self, Virtue and Public Life’ (funded by the Templeton Foundation), and working with Hope’s Teacher Education to develop mentoring programs for students in Liverpool’s deprived areas and research its impact. My Lecturing at Liverpool Hope examines critical pedagogy and social justice. This role has also enabled me to participate in International opportunities such as an Erasmus teaching exchange in Lille, France and leading a student trip to Waco, Texas focusing on prison and alternative education.

I am very grateful for the connections, conversations, and opportunities that studying at the University of Glasgow continues to bring into my life.