About Me

I am an Assistant Professor at Lakehead University. Previously I was a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Windsor, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary (geography) and a visiting scholar the University of Essex (sociology). I completed my PhD in sociology at Queen’s University. I hold a Master of Arts in sociology and Bachelor of Arts in sociology (hons) with an extended minor in criminology from Simon Fraser University.

My current project “In the Business of Policing” analyzes the convergence of public and private policing technologies used to patrol urban spaces and their implications for policing and community relations in Windsor (Ontario), Detroit (Michigan), Toronto (Ontario) and Chicago (Illinois).  

My doctoral dissertation “Mundane Surveillance: Tracking mobile applications and urban accounting in Canadian Business Improvement Areas” explored how technologies are used to police, account for, render, and manage urban space and populations.

My general research interests are in urban studies; critical criminology; policing studies; socio-legal theory; surveillance studies; science and technology studies; smart cities; wearables, and qualitative research methodologies.

With my supervisor Randy K Lippert (University of Windsor), I am also researching securitization of business improvement areas and condominiums (funded by a SSHRC IG). In addition, I am working on projects that focus on questions of justice, inclusion and governance in smart cities with Ryan Burns and Victoria Fast (University of Calgary), as well as a project on smart surveillance technologies with David Murakami Wood (Queen’s University). My interest in research methodologies has resulted in published and in-progress work on conference ethnography, Freedom of Information/Access to Information mechanisms, and mobile application analysis.

My work has been published in Surveillance and Society and the Canadian Journal of Sociology. I have contributed chapters to edited volumes such as Protests in the Information Age (eds. Melgaço & Monaghan) and Freedom of Information and Social Science Research Design (eds. Walby & Luscombe).