I tackle complex problems by helping people collect the right data, make sense of it and design strategies to traverse through it all. My focus is on those issues that affect our health and wellbeing -- the social, messy and interesting things that we all face in our everyday, but not all of us face equitably. I am the Principal of CENSE Research + Design and my interest is bringing together the science of systems, behaviour change and health promotion, and design to bear on these matters to design more beneficial and innovative spaces for us to flourish. My associates and I work with organizations large and small to engage communities in health promotion, evaluate the impact of the work they do to support public health, and design strategies to support both. I also train health professionals on ways to engage their constituents through social media and teach graduate students about behaviour change (from the individual through to communities), systems thinking, program evaluation and health promotion and serve as a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. I'm currently working on a project called Design Thinking Foundations that is studying the varied definitions of "design thinking" and how its practiced in different settings. My goal is to develop a few theories and models that can make the concept more accessible to those outside design, particularly in social and health services and to support the science and evidence base of social design.

Why I do what I do:

I love creating things and helping others solve problems. I am blend of extrovert and introvert and enjoy being social, but also spend much time being contemplative and studying social problems. I thought: what kind of job allows me to pursue my curiosities, teach and learn, and do social good at the same time? Answer: A professor, of course! Well, I've come to realize that there are a lot of people who are not professors doing that same thing without the additional overhead (literally and figuratively). I like to innovate and academia isn't well suited to that. I love to doodle, take pictures, behold art and "mess around" and realized that a lot of others in the public health field do too, but have no vehicle for it. I created my studio, CENSE Research + Design, to provide that space.