Teaching Contributions
I have taught three sessions of LS101 nearly every year since 2015. I tallied it up a couple of years ago, and that means I’ve had the pleasure of teaching over 3000 undergraduate students in that time! I’ve also taught a couple of sociology courses over the years at UW.
Research
My primary research area is policing and police accountability. I study the use of video evidence in criminal trials for police officers charged in on-duty shootings, and am currently completing a SSHRC Insight Grant and writing a book on the subject. Last year I was awarded a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant to work with the Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU) to examine how “the reasonable officer” is conceived by officers investigated by the SIU and victims of police violence. More broadly, I have an interest in technology and society, and recently completed a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant working with Netflix to consider the “social life of algorithms”. My most recent publication, “Gestalt Contexture and Contested Motives: Understanding Video Evidence in the Murder Trial of Officer Michael Slager” (link) has just been awarded the American Sociological Association’s merit distinction for the Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis section.
Hobbies and Interests
At the start of the pandemic I became very interested, perhaps obsessed, with fishing. I live very close to the Humber River and have taken up fly fishing, although work does distract from life’s more enjoyable pursuits. My family and I like to spend time in the Parry Sound area where we have a family cottage, and occasionally I knock the dust off the guitars hanging on my wall that, some lifetimes ago, helped me pay my way through my Master’s degree by playing Celtic music in pubs (fortunately no musical acumen was required…).
Road to St Jerome’s
In 2011 I took up a SSHRC post doc at UW under the supervision of Dr. Kieran Bonner. Prof. Bonner has been a long-standing friend and when my post doc concluded he encouraged me to pursue teaching contracts St Jerome’s. I have held sessional and faculty positions at McMaster and Laurier as well in this time, although St Jerome’s has been a near-constant home throughout my “early career” period.