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Where are you from? What did you do before coming to Dalhousie?

I’m from Halifax originally. We moved around a lot but came back here. I have a really weird history. I did a three-year degree at King’s, then went traveling for a year, then came back and did costume studies for two years at Dal, then upgraded my degree from King’s into an honours degree in history—which is really hard to explain on a CV. I did my Master’s of Library and Information Studies at SIM, but that was after several years working. I worked in the clothing industry, as a seamstress for a women’s clothing designer, then as a production coordinator and designer at a uniform company. I did some film costuming but not a lot. That was mainly in Ontario. There was an element of data management with the production coordinator job. I guess that would be the bridge to Information Management. I actually received my PhD through Dal, an interdisciplinary PhD with the Faculty of Management and Computer Science. That was in 2014.

What are your research and teaching interests?

I teach Information and Society, looking at the different dimensions of information, whether it’s economic, political or social, and that includes the impact of emerging technologies as well as themes like privacy, intellectual property, access and digital divide, which is inequality with regards to access to information, by demographics or place or economics. I’ve taught in the past about the experiences of users with technology. My research is mainly concerned with people’s perceptions of web-based technologies. My main research is on the phenomenon of serendipity and how we can support this phenomenon through digital information environments. So it’s about people not just looking at something specific in the search box, but performing a little more exploration and creativity, exploring more diverse ideas. It’s when people stumble upon something that they weren’t necessarily looking for and it turns into something valuable. I’m interested in this through the example of knowledge workers. Recently I’ve been researching social media and how it may actually enable boundary-crossing, like geographic, organizational and disciplinary boundaries. So maybe people are crossing into different areas than they were previously exposed to, and that leads to different products or ideas or research directions, and that in turn impacts different organizations or areas of research or companies, that kind of thing. That’s what I’m interested in—what the impacts are, what the factors are. I take both a qualitative and quantitative approach to that research.

What drew you to the School of Information Management and Dal?

When I was coming back to do my master’s degree, I thought I wanted to be a librarian, and once I started the program I got hooked on the research aspect of it and did my thesis, and it kind of went from there. By extension I wanted to come back and work here as well. My thesis was on serendipity in digital environments, and I developed a scale to measure how well the digital environment supports serendipity. So right now I’m trying to build on that research. Social media really supports serendipity, and that’s why I’ve moved in the direction of social media. It’s a little bit more dynamic and probably more representative of our serendipity face-to-face. In the 1990s and 2000s and even now, there is a lot of concern about reduction in serendipity because you don’t have as much face-to-face time. So it’s interesting to see if social media can change that, because it involves more people rather than just an algorithm. There is still the possibility that there’s a reduction of the potential for serendipity, but I’m interested in exploring that tension.

What’s your favourite thing about working here?

I think I would have to say the people. I did a post-doc immediately after my PhD at the University of Western Ontario, so I had colleagues there but I didn’t have the face-to-face interaction. So this is nice. The people at SIM are really great to work with.

Tell me about something you’ve accomplished.

I just got a SSHRC RDF grant. I’m happy about that. That will give me a good chance to work on the research on serendipity and social media and that boundary-crossing idea. So I’m excited about moving forward with that.

What advice would you give to a new faculty/staff member?

I’m still soliciting advice myself! I don’t know. I guess just to be open to opportunities and take advantage of whatever grants are available and the different support that is offered.

What’s something most people here don’t know about you?

I’m a paddler. That’s my summertime passion. I do war canoe in Dartmouth, which is where we live. It’s so much fun. This was only my third summer, so I’m very new. It’s like the scariest experience and the most fun all wrapped in one. They say you’re supposed to do something that scares you every day—I think I fulfill that every day in the summer. But it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of teamwork, too. Everyone has to paddle at exactly the same time or you won't move the boat.