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Police civilianization, the employment of non-police personnel in various roles within police forces, has been increasing as policing practices demand greater specialization and a broader range of specific skills. In this context, my research aims to explore and describe civilianization initiatives within police forces across Canada by examining the roles and tasks carried out by civilian staff, assessing how the scope and nature of these roles vary within and across police organizations, and identifying strategies to best leverage civilian expertise in advancing organizational mandates. Relying on qualitative methods, combining ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this exploratory study seeks to achieve a better understanding of police organizational change, specifically the processes and implications of civilianization. Ultimately, it strives to inform and guide police management policies on civilianization best practices by developing an operational framework focused on efficient and sustainable strategies for hiring, integrating, retaining, and deploying civilian staff within the police institution.

My dissertation research will broadly contribute to debates on digital colonialism by examining how Guyana’s “Digital Guyana” initiative negotiates digital sovereignty as a liberatory strategy to push back against Big Tech hegemony and how this initiative is bound up with postcolonial national identity in the digital age.

My dissertation research is broadly focused on state-industry-science networks in the critical minerals industry.

Spencer’s doctoral work examines how hybrid and remote work arrangements are reshaping organizational culture, labor practices, and everyday working life. Drawing on theories of deep mediatization and meaning-making, his dissertation research investigates how digital infrastructures, platform governance, and post-pandemic workplace policies influence temporal expectations, identity formation, and experiences of productivity. His dissertation contributes to emerging discussions of digital labor, organizational change, and the evolving relations between workers, employers, and technological systems in the contemporary workplace.

My master’s thesis explores museums’ ongoing attempts to engage with rhetorics of diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, and asks racialized immigrants about their resulting experiences and perceptions as visitors. This research analyzes the remaining impacts of art institutions’ colonial origins, which historically banned or fetishized people of colour. Through a discourse analysis of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s website and semi-structured interviews with racialized immigrants, this project examines the cultural importance of art institutions and their role in facilitating or hindering social inclusion for marginalized groups. Overall, this research will produce programming and design recommendations, helping museums work towards social inclusion.

My research project provides a critical socio-legal analysis of the persistent decriminalization of marital rape in India, framing the issue within the nation's historical legislative trajectory. The research traces the enduring colonial legacy of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and its subsequent replacement by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The core methodology involves a systematic, critical case analysis of judicial transcripts spanning both the IPC and BNS eras. This approach identifies continuous and similar judicial patterns and reasonings that sustain the marital rape exception, demonstrating a failure of the BNS to achieve complete decolonization in this critical area. The study also investigates the complex, ongoing role of the age-based exception, alongside the influence of entrenched societal attitudes and political power dynamics. In all, the research illuminates the struggling nature of legal reform in securing bodily autonomy for married women in India.

My research aims to understand how the relationships between innovative technologies, sustainability discourses, and religious/spiritual belief(s) and practices are framed, understood and negotiated within alternative death social movements. I will examine how technologies—including resomation (alkaline hydrolysis/liquid cremation chemical dissolution), promession (cryogenic freezing and vibrative pulverization), and recomposition (organic conversion of decaying remains to compost)—are being differentially engaged with by three alternative social movements, often associated with radical consumerist critiques of advanced medical technologies. My objectives are to conduct: a critical examination of relevant sociological, thanatological, philosophical, and religious studies research regarding embodiment and mortality, historical and prevailing funereal and decomposition rituals, and spiritual beliefs; a content analysis of corporate iconography and symbolic discourse concerning the ecologically (re)generative capacities and redemptive promises of such disposition technologies; and a cross-comparative discourse analysis of three online coalitional groups (The Order of Good Death, Alcor, and Green Burial Society of Canada).

My research focuses on the assembly, mobilization, and regulation of health and medical information and knowledge on social media. Specifically, I focus on the marketing and content moderation strategies of various actors including influencers, social media management agencies (SMMAs), and pharmaceutical and telehealth companies. Through this study, I aim 1) to understand what (and how) health/medical information is communicated on social media by patient influencers, pharmaceutical and telehealth companies, 2) to understand what guidelines shape content creation, marketing practices, influencer partnerships, etc. for patient influencers and pharmaceutical companies, and 3) to understand what the work of patient influencers and SMMA workers entails, in practice.

My dissertation research focuses on understanding and addressing the subtle barriers in the hiring and promotion process, specifically those which impact the evaluation and selection of lawyers in Canadian law firms. I conducted semi-structured interviews with both partners and associates with the aim to paint a nuanced account of hiring. I am particularly interested in lawyers’ experiences applying to jobs, going through interviews, and firm dynamics once on the job. Partners were asked an additional series of questions that explored how candidate decisions are made. I am interested in how both organizational and individual level practices, together, reproduce inequalities.

Using General Strain Theory and Critical Race Theory, I am exploring the strains Punjabi youth in the Greater Toronto Area and Peel Region experience, and whether these strains contribute to deviant behaviours.