{"id":3499,"date":"2025-08-13T13:13:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T17:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/align\/?post_type=cu_people&p=3499"},"modified":"2025-08-13T13:13:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T17:13:29","slug":"kathy-dobson-3","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/align\/people\/kathy-dobson-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Kathy Dobson"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Biography:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

An award-winning author, journalist, and scholar, Dr. Kathy Dobson is a Senior Research Fellow with the Alternative Global Network (ALiGN) Media Lab at the School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University. Kathy Dobson\u2019s research interests are in the areas of media, justice, and political action, particularly focusing on political usages and implications of new technologies and media for social justice among marginalized groups, notably those experience homelessness and poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathy earned a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Carleton University with a dissertation titled \u201cLiving in Algorithmic Governance: A Study in the Digital Governance of Social Assistance in Ontario.\u201d<\/em><\/a> It examines the Ontario government\u2019s Social Assistance Management System (SAMS), a type of algorithmically powered software that social assistance agencies use to categorize, sort, and manage the individuals who use social assistance. In particular, she explores how it feels<\/em> for those individuals who depend on this system to pay for rent, food, and other life essentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At ALiGN Media Lab, Kathy Dobson leads interdisciplinary research and creative projects on narrative forms, media innovation, and audience engagement. Se also oversees project design, supervises researchers, and produces scholarly and creative outputs for academic and public dissemination. Beyond research, at the Lab Kathy also is acting as a managing editor, writer, and podcaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During her doctoral study at Carleton University, Kathy Dobson was awarded multiple distinctions and scholarships, including the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2015-2018), Robert McKeown Doctoral Scholarship (2015, 2018), and Joseph-Armand Bombardier Graduate Scholarship (2015). In 2017, she was also named Carleton University\u2019s \u201cCU75 Winter Hero<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathy has taken a circuitous route into academia, working as a journalist for over twenty years and raising a family while undertaking her BA, MA, and Ph.D. Therefore, she brings a wealth of life and professional experiences into the academia and journalism worlds. As a journalist, Kathy Dobson\u2019s work has appeared in the Globe & Mail<\/em>, National Post<\/em>, Ottawa Citizen<\/em>, Canadian Living<\/em>, Chatelaine<\/em>, Maclean\u2019s<\/em> magazine, and more. A former news stringer for the CBC<\/em>, Kathy also produced numerous documentaries for CBC Radio<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathy has utilized her lived experiences in multiple forms\u2014from journalistic essays to creative non-fiction to academic writing\u2014to engage, connect, and even mobilize audience\/readers. Growing up in an industrial slum of Montr\u00e9al with her five sisters and their single mother on welfare, Kathy\u2019s work has been focused on issues of representation, especially of those who live in or have experienced poverty. Kathy shared her journey of growing up in an area of Montr\u00e9al that was once described by the National Film Board as \u201cthe toughest neighbourhood in Canada\u201d in her first and second books. The first book, With A Closed Fist: Growing up in Canada\u2019s Toughest Neighbourhood<\/em><\/a> (V\u00e9hicule Press, 2011), is about to go into its third printing and is also undergoing translation into French. The Globe and Mail <\/em>described it as \u201c<\/em>a great work, illustrating the divide between the classes with the sly observations of an eight-year-old child growing through the pages, these insights drenched in authenticity and moral ambiguity\u2026 Dobson has enormous talent.<\/a>\u201d The Montr<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>al Gazette <\/em>described it as \u201cCanada\u2019s Angela\u2019s Ashes<\/em>.\u201d Kathy received an Ontario Art Council grant to work on her second book, Kicking and Punching: Leaving Canada\u2019s Toughest<\/a> Neighbourhood. <\/em>It has been a best-selling book on Amazon in Qu\u00e9bec since its release. Currently, Kathy is working on her third book (under contract), The History of Whistle Blowing, <\/em>with V\u00e9hicule Press in Montr\u00e9al.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selected publications:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Books (creative non-fiction)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n