Our people
Directors
Corey W. Johnson, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Professor, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies
University of Waterloo
Pronouns: he/his/him
Dr. Corey W. Johnson is a Professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo. He teaches courses on inclusive recreation, social justice, gender and sexuality, qualitative research methods, and the philosophy of science.
Dr. Johnson’s theorizing and qualitative inquiry focuses its attention on the power relations between dominant (white, male, heterosexual, etc.) and non-dominant populations in the cultural contexts of leisure. His research has been published in Journal of Leisure Research, Leisure Sciences, The Journal of Homosexuality and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education just to name a few. He has co-written Fostering Social Justice through Qualitative Research: A methodological guide, Collective Memory Work: Learning with and from Lived Experience and co-edited Digital Dilemmas: Transforming gender identities and power relations in everyday lives, Contemporary Issues in Leisure Sciences and Promiscuous Perspectives: Sex and Leisure. He has received substantial financial support in his efforts to create safer environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in institutional settings such as camps, secondary schools, universities and detention centers, Co-producing two documentaries, “be there for me”: collective memories of LGBTQ youth in high school, and “We exist”: collective memories of transgender, queer and questioning youth.
Diana C. Parry, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Professor, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies
University of Waterloo
Dr. Diana Parry has a Bachelor of Recreation and Leisure Studies (Brock University), Master of Arts (University of Waterloo) and a PhD in Leisure Studies (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Diana is currently a Professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo. Diana provides strategic and academic leadership, and works with the campus community to lead, articulate, and affect culture change through policies, programs and practice. A Professor in Applied Health Sciences and a fellow in the Academy of Leisure Sciences, Diana’s research utilizes a variety of feminist theories to explore the personal and political links between women’s leisure and women’s health, broadly defined. Diana’s scholarship and activism has been recognized through accolades including the Ontario Women’s Directorate Leading Women Award.
Team
Stefanie Duguay
Assistant Professor
Stefanie Duguay is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal where she manages the Digital Intimacy, Gender, and Sexuality (DIGS) Lab. Her research focuses on the influence of digital media technologies in everyday life, with attention to the intersection of sexual identity, gender, and social media. This has included studies of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) people’s use of social media, dating apps, and multiple platforms for digital self-representation. Stefanie’s research has been published in New Media & Society, Social Media + Society, Information, Communication & Society, and other international, peer-reviewed journals.
Websites: digslab.net or stefanieduguay.com.
Twitter: @DugStef
Jonathan Petrychyn, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Dr. Jonathan Petrychyn is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender, Sexuality, and Digitality in the Department of Recreation & Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo. His research is situated broadlyat the intersections of sex, activism, and media, and specifically focuses on the socio-cultural context in which media is used, consumed, exhibited, or distributed. He received his PhD in Communication & Culture from York University and Ryerson University in 2019. His dissertation, “Networks of Feeling: Affective Economies of Queer & Feminist Film Festivals on the Canadian Prairies” was awarded the Susan Mann Dissertation Scholarship. His work has been published in Senses of Cinema, Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, and is forthcoming in Journal for Media History.
Jasmine Nijjar
Ph.D. Student
Jasmine Nijjar (she/her) is a PhD student in the department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo. Her research interests include exploring the intricacies and complexities of relationships broadly defined. She considers colonial histories, gender, cultural, racial experiences and intersectionalities to amplify difference. She is currently examining how Bumble users understand and negotiate the "women choose-first" feature of the application in relation to difference, power, and their intersections with race, class, and sexual identities.
Luc Cousineau, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Luc S. Cousineau is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Université du Québec à Montréal’s International Network on Technology, Work and Family (INTWAF), and instructor at the University of Waterloo. His research is divided between the study of employee surveillance software (“Bossware”) and masculinity, men’s rights, and leisure online. Luc’s research centers gender and power relations in work and leisure spaces, with a particular focus on how masculinities are understood and interact with lives online. Using qualitative and digital ethnographic methods, Luc has written on the ethics of platform-based quarantines, leisure and digitality, and Geo-Social Networking Applications (GSNAs). His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Digital Ethics, AG – AboutGender, and Leisure Sciences, and has chapters in several books, including Rise of the Far Right: Technologies of recruitment and mobilization.
Harrison Oakes, Ph.D.
Banting Postdoctoral Fellow
Pronouns: he/his/him
Dr. Harrison Oakes is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Social Research Institute of University College London’s Institute of Education. His cross-disciplinary research examines the impact of social contexts on person perception, identity processes, and wellbeing. Currently, he is studying the impact of using dating apps on the emotional, social, sexual, and mental health of men who have sex with men. In particular, he is interested in better understanding how the impact of these apps on users’ wellbeing is informed by the reciprocity between users’ app-use motives and actual experiences on the apps, the often-rapid fluctuations in the (mis)alignment of these motives and experiences, and ultimately, how users’ experiences are structured by desirability hierarchies on these dating apps. Harrison’s research has been published in multiple top-tier, peer-reviewed journals, such as, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Psychological Science, and his dissertation was awarded Canada’s most prestigious academic award, the Governor General’s Gold Medal.
Eric Filice
Postdoctoral Fellow
Pronouns: he/him or they/them
Eric Filice (he/him) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Recreation & Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo. An interdisciplinary scholar at heart, his research interests span digital media, subjectivity, sexuality, embodiment, and public health. His current work largely focuses on the social and psychological changes wrought by information and communications technology, including social media and geo-social networking apps. His work has been published in Body Image, Sex Roles, and the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, among other international, peer-reviewed journals.
Amy Matharu
Ph.D. Student
Pronouns: she/her
Amy Matharu (she/her) is a PhD student in the Aging, Health and Well-being program at the University of Waterloo. Her research interests include health, gender, aging, sports, and social media. Her Ph.D. work explores athlete transitions and identity through a fourth wave feminist lens.