I completed my BA and MA in psychology at York University and Wilfrid Laurier University respectively. I then pursued a PhD in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto specialising in medical sociology. Upon completion of my doctoral training, I joined Wilfrid Laurier...
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I completed my BA and MA in psychology at York University and Wilfrid Laurier University respectively. I then pursued a PhD in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto specialising in medical sociology. Upon completion of my doctoral training, I joined Wilfrid Laurier University first as contract faculty in 2007 and then as full-time faculty the following year. Since my appointment, I spent two research leaves in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I pursued training and research in conversation analysis. I have also served as Graduate Director (2015-2016, 2019-2020), Undergraduate Advisor (2016-2017), and Department Chair (2017-2020). I am currently a Research Fellow in the Laurier Centre for Studies in Canada.
My research interests are situated at the intersection of health, society, and interaction. In my current research, I use conversation analysis on video and audio recorded data, involving people going about their everyday lives, to identify the practices through which identity categories and health statuses are made relevant (or made available for inference) in interaction. I have been using these insights to understand the basis upon which ‘difference’ between and among people are realised in mundane conversations. In the past, I have collaborated with community-based organizations and with health researchers, mainly in the area of HIV/AIDS, to produce practical research to improve the delivery of services and the promotion of health. During these collaborations, I conducted several qualitative research methods workshops with social service workers and peer researchers to help build research capacities of community partners.
I am currently leading two interrelated projects.
The first is The HIV, Health, and Interaction Study, a conversation analytic study on naturalistic talk involving people living with HIV/AIDS. This work aligns with other critical social science research that seeks to trouble normative assumptions that infuse and premise mundane conversations.
The second uses conversation analysis to identify the interactional organization of news announcements (of HIV, of LGBT identity).
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