Teaching

I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Technology & Social Change in the Department of Sociology & Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Canada. I am cross-appointed in the Department of English Language and Literature.

Previously, I was a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. I have also been an instructor in the Faculty of Translation, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies (site in German) at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany.

Covering the studies of media, communication, culture, storytelling, and design, my interdisciplinary teaching experience has developed pedagogical skills that adapt to complement different areas, levels, and methods of study. I offer particular expertise in humanistic approaches to technology and media. As undergraduate and graduate students unavoidably encounter digital media and culture in their everyday lives, they are also tasked with incorporating digital frameworks and tools into what and how they learn. With this in mind, my teaching aims to prepare students for critical and workplace standards in advanced digital literacies and digital skills training. In particular, a combination of theory and practice in technology and media helps students continue to develop transferrable skills for future education, work, and research.

My attention to the unique needs of students has been sharpened by past professional experience in the early 2010s as a teacher and tutor of recently immigrated Chinese high school students in Canada. Instructing in both English and Cantonese, I designed group and one-on-one curricula in the fields of English literature, and critical reading and writing skills (for the latter, in preparation for the TOEFL, or, Test of English as a Foreign Language).

A former student states that discussions in my classes “have at times been so intense and intriguing that [the time] has gone by in a flash! You never want it to end, and I will miss it very much.”