Professional Experience:
My robust professional experience crosses international borders, spans the public and private sectors, and includes work on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder engagement, industry analysis (hospitality/tourism/gaming and energy/natural resources), immigration policy research and international labor law.
As a doctoral researcher I worked on community and stakeholder engagement and governance by international natural resource corporations in remote communities in Northern regions (Russia, USA (Alaska)). I analyzed U.S. and Russian scientific and technical policies, programs, and agencies focused on sustainable natural resource development, and environmental monitoring and assessment. I produced a doctoral dissertation, oral presentations, scholarly journal articles, reports, recommendations, background papers and other deliverables for a range of audiences. I developed and managed grant applications for private, federal, and institutional funding bodies resulting in several research awards. I gained project management experience including budget creation and monitoring for multi-year, multi-stakeholder fieldwork in the Russian and Alaskan Arctics. I managed multiple tasks within a common time period, which involved creating, adjusting, and meeting deadlines and priorities. I am experienced with quantitative and qualitative research methods such as interviews, site visits, basic statistics, demographic research, ethics reviews.
I worked as the primary field researcher for a research project about energy resource sustainability in the Canadian sub-Arctic North, entitled: ‘Mining Conflict, North and South: Deepening the Governance Debate’, funded by The Leverhulme Trust (UK). I arranged and conducted fieldwork including site visits and interviews consulting with community stakeholders and leaders in the extractives sector about mining and natural resource management in remote communities in Northern British Columbia (in-person and phone).
In 2010 I participated on research team as labor affairs expert for international evaluation field trip to assess technical Cooperation Program designed and implemented jointly by the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) and the U.S. Department of Labor Office Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (DOL/OCFT). I assisted in conducting foreign field research using data collection methods including grantee and community ethnographic interviews, discussion with other international funders (World Bank, UNICEF etc) to assess multilateral efforts to eliminate child labor, participant observation in classrooms and schools and meeting of provincial child monitoring networks and site visits with focus group discussions with a range of project beneficiaries. As part of this project, I provided recommendations to guide future multilateral ILO and U.S. Department of State Child Labor negotiations and projects. Contributed recommendations to project evaluation reports, final evaluation report, and technical briefing for the U.S. Department of Labor, entitled: ‘Evaluation of the Office Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking Technical Cooperation Program: Report on the Site Visit to Cambodia.
I have also worked as a strategic research analyst for a labor union representing immigrant workers. My work focused on corporate, financial and hospitality/gaming industry research. I helped develop organizational strategy and presented it to organization’s leadership via reports, presentations, whitepapers, and memoranda to further organizational goals.
At the U.S. federal government I once again focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and international migrant worker policies as I helped draft the U.S. Department of Labor’s report on the United Nations’ corporate social responsibility measures. I contributed research and substantive edits to the labor section of the Department of State's annual Country Reports on Human Rights.