IERG Post Doctoral Fellows

Krystina Madej recently completed her PhD in Digital Narrative at SFU's School for Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT). Her academic research looks at how narrative is mediated by different technologies, is a part of our enculturation process, and creates meaning for us in our immediate and global environment. She maintains an interest in many other narrative topics: in the history of print and digital media, in particular children's narrative and literacy practices; in story, imagery and interface and how these engage and immerse children and adolescents in an enculturation experience; in the similarity between early print narrative and digital game play experience; in the rhetorical process of the web; in language arts curriculum as it influences how and what narrative is made accessible to children; and in technology, media, and cultural policy as it affects access to culture through print and digital narrative. Dr. Madej has presented on narrative at numerous international conferences most recently at the Media, Humanities and Communication Conference at the London School of Economics. (Sept. 2008). She has a BFA from Concordia University and a Master of Arts in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State University in 2001. Prior to returning to graduate work in 1999 she enjoyed a 25-year professional career in communications and design during which she successfully implemented a wide-range of projects including major exhibit installations, for government, business and industry, and the non-profit sector such as museums.

Gillian Judson’s Ph.D. thesis explored the theoretical and practical terrains of imaginative education and ecological education. Three questions guided her research: What are the central features of ecological education? How might the imagination help ecological education realize its goals? What would an imaginative ecological education look like in practice? How the imagination, with its emotional roots and somatic core, might facilitate the development of students’ ecological understanding, or sense of interconnectedness within the natural world, is currently unexplored terrain. Gillian successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis in November 2008. She is beginning to focus her attention on IERG’s work with teachers, and will spearhead our workshop offerings and help in the development and deployment of our “kit” that provides “An Introduction to Imaginative Education.”