I am a first year doctoral student in the department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at OISE. My research interests center on conversations (Science Discourse) in science classrooms: how can conversations be used to promote and better understand student identity, scientific literacy, conceptual understanding as well as fostering communication and collaboration skills? I am also interested in how various conversational strategies can be assessed and evaluated with reliability and validity.  I am also a full time science/ chemistry teacher in the Durham District School Board (east of Toronto, Ca) where, in my 23 years+ of teaching, I have also served at the system level as the NTIP/Staff Development Facilitator (2016-2018) and also as the STEM/ Science K-12 Facilitator (2018-2021). My advisor is Dr. Jim Slotta and I am a member of the Encore Lab which studies technology enhanced learning environments as well as critical action/science education in STEM as well as active learning.