Personal Description
Previous to teaching Waikato University, I also taught at the highly regarded Wanganui School of Design.

Research Interests

My area of research focus has been in children's on-screen reading. These investigations have specifically looked into how typographic spacing could best affect children's eye movements during reading. This area of exploration saw me graduate with a Masters in Computer Graphic Design from Wanganui School of Design in 2007. I have begun publishing in this area with a recent paper presented at Ed-Media 2008 in Vienna, Austria.

As a central part of my teaching and research at the University of Waikato, I have pursued my interests in socially responsible graphic design through a collaborative project with community based arts foundation, Waikato Artmakers Trust. Director of Artmakers Trust, Sylvie Bolstad and I initiated this collaboration in 2006. The university's contribution that I champion is a central part of an ongoing community initiative entitled "The Glass Hedgehog Project" (loads external window), named as an ode to the first story created by Artmakers Trust.

I have developed the community and socially minded creative methodology known as Digital Storytelling into a workable series of learning outcomes suitable for final semester Computer Graphic Design students, while Sylvie has successfully integrated this into the Artmakers Trust, Foundation Arts Programme. This project finds a young storyteller paired with a senior tertiary graphic design student to create a collaboratively produced digital story. The outcome of the partnerships in this project continue to amaze, inspire and surprise, both myself and Sylvie. I have begun publishing in this area with a recent papers presented at Ed-Media 2008 & 2009 as well as upcoming publications including The International Journal of the Book, presently in print.