I am a Canadian researcher, educator, and learning scientist specializing in learner agency, postdigital education, and the ethical design and impact of digital and immersive learning technologies. As the Director of the ALIVE Research Lab at the University of British Columbia, I study how learner agency is shaped within and beyond formal education, including through video games, virtual reality, and algorithmically mediated platforms. My recent work examines how agency, power, and critical consciousness intersect with algorithms, AI, and digital futures in education — and how these dynamics inform patient engagement, advocacy, and healthcare research.

My research also focuses on making agency visible in healthcare contexts by investigating how patients enact agency as partners in care and research, with an emphasis on cardiovascular disease and chronic illness. This work bridges education and health, connecting frameworks of agency and critical pedagogy with patient-oriented research and digital health education.

However, my most important role is that of a heart failure survivor and two-time heart transplant recipient. Following my transplants, to honour the efforts of my medical team and the sacrifice of my donors, I have worked to advocate for the inclusion of patients as partners in healthcare practice and research. In 2016, I co-founded the HeartLife Foundation with Marc Bains, Canada’s first — and only — national patient-led heart failure organization, which has grown into a network of heart failure patients across Canada. In 2022, HeartLife was awarded Effective Voice of the Year by the World Heart Federation for the Heart Failure Patient and Family Caregiver Charter, which has since been translated into 17 languages by the Global Heart Hub and endorsed by more than 30 patient organizations worldwide. In 2020, the feature documentary My Broken Heart, about my life, received an Honourable Mention at the Santa Monica International Film Festival and is available to screen on YouTube.