Bio

When I’m not consulting on other projects, I spend my time at PopShift (a project of Pathos Labs). There, I design initiatives aimed at bringing journalists and Hollywood creators into creative collaboration, and contribute to a slew of incredible programs aimed at encouraging more nuance and representation in Hollywood storytelling. Most recently, I was part of the team that launched The IP List.

Prior to that, I was the founding editor of Reasons to be Cheerful, a New York-based online magazine that I helped artist and musician David Byrne launch in 2019. 

I co-founded and led Discourse Media, an acclaimed organization that produced innovative solutions journalism projects rooted in collaboration. Discourse Media’s projects were produced with news outlets around the world, from The New York Times and Al Jazeera to The Zimbabwean and Republica Nepal, and received numerous awards. At Discourse I loved collaborating with scientists, student journalists, data nerds and many others to bring refreshing perspectives to our journalism.

Before Discourse, I travelled the world as the resident writer for the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a mobile urban think tank project of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and co-authored Participatory City (2013, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation), a book series and interactive gallery that later served as the foundation for an exhibition at the museum. I was also the lead researcher for the book Happy City: Transforming our lives through urban design (2013, Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Doubleday; Penguin). I later helped transition the book’s team to an urban design consultancy bearing the same name. With them, I briefly helped governments and organizations like the WHO and UN-Habitat integrate concepts of happiness into urban design policy. 

I’ve freelanced for publications on three continents and got my start as a reporter at the fearless online political news magazine, The Tyee. I was a video blogger for MSN and also had a brief and glorious stint doing fluff broadcast segments for Xinhua News Agency. Once, I was the sole news reporter for Turtle Island News, the community newspaper to the Six Nations of the Grand River. 

A fan of mountains and cities, I live with the best of both in Vancouver, Canada. Making my home on the unceded territories of the Musquem, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, I benefit daily from their age-old stewardship of this incredible land. For that, I am forever in their debt.