About

I am an Assistant Professor in History at the University of Guelph.  I am also the Associate Director of The Humanities Interdisciplinary Collaboration Lab (THINC Lab), a research space in the McLaughlin Library that provides space and expertise for graduate students and faculty working on digital, interdisciplinary projects. In this position, I work to create community around digital humanities by organizing workshops, speaker series, and hands-on events (like Programming Historian meet-ups and Wikipedia Edit-a-thons).

My own research has three main areas of focus: serendipity, linked data for the humanities, and inclusive makerspaces. My PhD from the University of Western Ontario’s Library and Information Studies Department focussed on the role of serendipity in historian’s information-seeking, in both physical and digital environments. This work has been extended over the course of my postdoc to look at the ways that the semantic web can provide serendipitous environments for researchers. My work with The MakerBus led me toyet another  area of research: the use of public makerspaces by women and the LGTBQ community. Questions about community building and inclusive public spaces has resulted in The DIYversity Project, a SSHRC funded engagement with a local community makerspace, Diyode.