Department of Psychology

Biography:

I received my doctorate at York University and have taught at Wilfrid Laurier University and Trent University in addition to Ryerson University.  I arrived at Ryerson in 2001 and have enjoyed my time here in both teaching and research.  I have been very lucky to have been given the opportunity to help develop a course that is aimed at improving student success, especially in the first year of university.  Not only is the course fun to teach but has given me the opportunity to meet most of our first year social sciences class over the last few years.  I have also been fortunate to have had the opportunity to teach perception and vision science to students in psychology as well as students in other programs.  I particularly enjoy teaching a course in visual information processing that is taken by students in interior design and image arts.  Of course, one of my favorite courses to teach is Introductory Psychology. 

I have strong research interests in several fields.  I am well trained in vision science and have an interest in the perception of individuals with compromised vision systems.  I have recently been looking at changes in the perception of motion that occur with changes in attention and age.  In addition, I have been recently running a study looking at the perception of the direction of motion for individuals with strabismus (eye turn).  My other research interest is in access to higher education for students with disabilities.  I am currently developing a project to examine access to education for students with visual impairment and blindness.  Previously I have examined the barriers in higher education for students with learning disabilities and physical disabilities.  Finally, I have an interest in student success in general and have recently conducted several studies to examine the effect of success courses on information literacy and general measures of academic resourcefulness.