Immigrant families settling the land, quilting bees, and ploughing matches are examples of some of the social and economic topics of early Ontario that link my work to the larger expertise of this University concerning agriculture and rural communities.
I am fascinated by rurally located places of destination...My students and I work towards understanding how physical design and planning can ameliorate negative impacts on these rural environments.
I study glacial deposits to reconstruct past climate change and to better understand how these deposits affect the movement of groundwater and contaminants today.
I and my lab study animal welfare. We're interested in how to create good living conditions for animals kept in labs, zoos and farms; in how scientists can assess well-being objectively; and in what happens to brain and behaviour when animals are raised and kept lifelong in confining, barren enclosures.
My research lies in the field of global environmental governance, focusing primarily on the role of cities and transnational city-networks in reducing the world's global carbon footprint.
My research interests include parent-child relationships, child development, early childhood education and care, child and family well-being, family relations, various aspects of work-life integration (as well as school-life or school-work-life integration), and the experiences of non-traditional students in formal post-secondary education, in particular mature students and student parents.
