My time in SLALS lasted between 2010 and 2019. After finishing an Honours BA in History, I did my MA between 2011 and 2013 and then worked in various places using writing and research skills I developed through the MA. I worked in science policy and medical education research in the Council of Canadian Academies (the CCA) and the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine respectively. I entered the PhD program in September 2015 and completed it in September 2019 under the supervision of Graham Smart. My doctoral research involved an ethnography of the CCA, an Ottawa-based non-governmental organization dedicated to providing science advice to Canadian government policy-makers. I focused on the CCA’s culture as it informs the discursive transformation and re-purposing of scientific knowledge in a manner that makes the science accessible and useful to policy-makers working in Canada’s federal government. Taking a project completed for Transport Canada, I examined the opaque collaborative discursive activity involved in recontextualizing science for policy-makers as well as the final report, titled Older Canadians on the Move. I am now working in Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service in the area of knowledge exchange. A primary part of my work involves sharing research done by forest scientists in a manner that makes the knowledge accessible and useful to non-scientific audiences, including policy-makers. I’m excited to be a part of the public service and to begin transferring the knowledge and experience I gained through my time studying in SLaLS to my current and future work.
Last updated: November 1, 2019