Members & Researchers

WiCS would promote various learning, work opportunities, and user studies to women, gender-diverse students, and (where possible) students from other underrepresented populations to help promote their representation and ensure that the Global Future of Work team collects their views and feedback. WiCS will also provide a forum for Global Future of Work pivot initiatives.

Cristen is passionate about helping students connect with the entrepreneurial, innovation, and tech world in ways that go beyond the classroom. With a background in relationship management and experience building strategic partnerships, she focuses on creating opportunities for students to learn by doing—whether that’s through hands-on projects, industry collaborations, or community engagement. Cristen is of the believe that the most valuable part of the student journey comes from the networks they build along the way, and works to foster connections that give them both practical experience and a strong foundation for their future. Curiosity, collaboration, and meaningful relationships drive everything she does, and she loves seeing students gain the skills, confidence, and support systems they need to flourish. 

Wayne is passionate about entrepreneurship education and experiential learning, with a focus on new venture creation, business models, and processes. Over the past 10 years, he has worked with approximately 600 students annually through courses and the entrepreneurship co-op program. His work centres on developing students’ entrepreneurial mindset and ecosystem networking skills, equipping them to become creators, builders, and problem-solvers. Wayne also emphasizes the importance of adaptability in the rapidly evolving future of work, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence.

Trevor Charles' primary interest in the Future of Work centers on how AI can create a truly continuous deep tech innovation cycle. He envisions an integrated platform, perhaps a next-gen electronic lab notebook, where the entire product lifecycle, from initial experimental design to commercialization and client feedback, is treated as one cohesive "lab." AI would act as the central nervous system, automatically connecting each stage. It could extract insights from early experiments, using generative AI to create and iterate on product concepts. As a product moves to development and marketing, the AI would generate ad copy and sales materials based on technical data. Post-launch, it would analyze customer feedback from multiple channels, and then, most critically, use those insights to inform and suggest new experimental designs. This would create a powerful, self-improving loop, making the whole process faster, smarter, and more responsive to the market.

Daniel is a feminist economic geographer who focuses on high-status work in the US and Canada. He is interested in the role that social differences (including class, gender, race, and sexuality) play in office settings, and how working cultures are produced and maintained. His recent research explores the shift to working from home for office workers as a result of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in Ontario.

Tania Del Matto's research examines how students develop future-ready competencies through social entrepreneurship education, focusing on their ability to integrate knowledge, skills, and values into adaptable professional identities that can navigate volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) work environments. She investigates how graduates leverage their social entrepreneurship education to build innovation mindsets, critical thinking capabilities, and lifelong learning approaches that enable them to create meaningful career pathways while addressing complex societal challenges in an increasingly automated and globally interconnected workplace.

Dr. David Drewery is a researcher and academic leader exploring the evolving landscape of work through the lens of work-integrated learning. His research focuses on how partnerships between higher education and industry can foster future-ready talent development, preparing students and employers for an increasingly complex labour market. Dr. Drewery’s current projects focus on work-integrated learning as an organizational talent pipeline and intergenerational differences in work values. 

Lai-Tze Fan is the Canada Research Chair in Technology and Social Change, and an Associate Professor of Sociology & Legal Studies and English Literature at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She is the Founder and Director of The U&AI Lab at Waterloo, which uses interdisciplinary and creative methods for responsible AI design for society. Fan is Co-Director of Waterloo’s TRuST scholarly network, targeting misinformation in AI. Her work focuses on faireness in technological design and labour, including through ethical approaches to AI design, regulation, and governance that will support the future of work, training, and societal needs.

Anne-Marie Fannon is an internationally recognized leader in work-integrated learning (WIL) and the Director of the Work-Learn Institute at the University of Waterloo. With over two decades of experience in higher education, she has shaped national and international WIL ecosystems through strategic partnerships, policy development, and curriculum innovation. Her work focuses on building scalable and sustainable models that connect industry, academia, and government to prepare students for the future of work. Anne-Marie’s current efforts center on leveraging research to inform WIL pedagogy and practice, ensuring talent development remains responsive to a rapidly evolving global labour market.

Sharon Ferguson is an Assistant Professor of Management Science and Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Her research is in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, specifically investigating how we can design technologies that help teams collaborate successfully, regardless of where and when they work. Her recent research has focused on designing AI systems to measure collaboration characteristics (e.g., psychological safety, shared understanding) from a team’s chat data. She is also interested in understanding how recent “trends” in work organization (e.g., the four-day work week) affect collaboration patterns and team outcomes, and how AI systems can support workers in open-ended, subjective tasks. In the education space, she has studied how students make the decision to pursue a career in AI.

Troy's research examines how social infrastructure fosters meaningful connection, with a growing interest in the workplace as a site of social engagement. More specifically, how can employers create conditions for social connection in the context of remote and hybrid work? Without opportunities to build relationships, employees are less loyal and engaged, raising concerns for organizational resilience. Troy is also interested in exploring the implications of generative AI, particularly whether parasocial relationships with AI will emerge, and what this means for employee wellbeing and human connection at work.

Sharlene is an Assistant Professor at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business. Her area of expertise is the psychology of how people make different types of judgments and decisions. Currently, her research focuses on how emerging technologies (such as algorithms and AI) influence people’s decision-making and creative thinking, with a view towards understanding how these technologies can be implemented effectively. This research builds on her earlier work on how individuals form judgments and the factors that shape their reliance on different types of information. Her research is published in leading journals. Sharlene earned her PhD from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Edith Law is the Executive Director of the Future of Work Institute and Associate Professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, where she leads the Augmented Intelligence Lab and co-directs the Human Computer Interaction Lab. She is broadly interested in social computing technology that coordinates small groups to large crowds, new models of interactions with machine intelligence, and how technology can be designed to foster and celebrate certain human values.  As the Google Research Chair in the Future of Work and Learning, Edith will explore the design of AI-facilitated learning technologies along with new paradigms of learning and teaching with AI.  One of the education initiatives is the Futures Lab; a workshop where students work in interdisciplinary teams to envision new learning tools through prototyping using Google AI Studio or equivalent tools.  Under her leadership, the Future of Work Institute will aim to build interdisciplinary research capacity, experiment with new models of learning and teaching, and work with community partners to achieve impact locally and nationally.

Jen Nelson is Director of the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC), the largest outreach organization in Canada of its kind.  The CEMC’s mission is to increase interest, enjoyment, confidence, and ability in mathematics and computer science among K-12 learners and educators in Canada and around the world. Through contests, student workshops, educator development, and free online resources, the CEMC aims to support educators and inspire the next generation of problem solvers.

Dr. Kathryn (Katie) Plaisance is Professor of Knowledge Integration. Her research interests include interdisciplinary collaboration, psychological safety in teams, foundational skills development, and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Her main area of research draws on quantitative and qualitative methods to study broad interdisciplinary collaboration between humanities scholars and researchers working in science, engineering, technology, and math (STEM). As part of her SoTL work, she recently published a study about students’ attitudes, experiences, and skills related to working in diverse teams. Dr. Plaisance currently leads Waterloo’s contributions to a $2.5 million SSHRC Partnership Grant designed to equip graduate students with important skills for the future of work, such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and real-world problem solving.

Dr. Judene Pretti is an academic leader with more than 25 years of experience in higher education. Her research interests have been focused on the design and impacts of co-op and work-integrated learning programs for students, industry partners, educational institutions, and governments. She has investigated job design and skill development, as well as examining the connection between WIL program design and the future of work. Most recently, she has been exploring the conditions for supporting effective intergenerational collaboration within the workplace context.

Andrea Prier is Director of the Centre for Work-Integrated Learning within Co-operative and Experiential Education. Drawing on her teaching background and PhD in Cognition and Learning, current research interests centre around how AI and emerging technologies transform educational practices in workplace skills. Her current work focuses on AI-assisted reflection, inclusive design, and innovative curriculum approaches that help learners thrive in a rapidly evolving future of work.

Jeremy Steffler (he/they) has been part of the University of Waterloo community for over 30 years as a student, staff member, and equity leader. As the Faculty of Mathematics’ Equity Officer, he advances inclusive practices and fosters belonging through mentorship and advocacy. As an engineer, Jeremy brings a systems-thinking lens to equity work, integrating technical insight with human-centered values. He is chair and a founding member of the Rainbow Coalition of Waterloo Region, a local non-profit organization supporting 2SLGBTQIA+ communities for 15 years. At the Future of Work Institute, Jeremy contributes EDI expertise to guide ethical approaches to emerging technologies and work models, and advocates for opportunities to strengthen connections between campus and community.

Stephanie Whitney is passionate about exploring the intersection of technology, education, and workforce transformation. With experience in research, policy, and interdisciplinary collaboration, she focuses on how emerging trends—like AI, digital skills, and inclusive innovation—shape the future of learning and work. Stephanie brings a thoughtful, systems-level perspective to projects that aim to build resilient, equitable futures. She is especially interested in fostering partnerships between academia, industry, and communities to co-create meaningful change.

Dr. Nancy Worth is a feminist economic geographer who examines the future of work through the lens of social difference, the lived experience of the economic. Using feminist theory and qualitative methods, her scholarship engages with relationality, precarity and futurity to understand how workers negotiate a changing labour market. Her research spans school-to-work transitions with disabled young people, gendered precarious employment, invisible labour in knowledge work, and work-from-home freelancing in Toronto's media sector. Her current SSHRC-funded project investigates study-work-housing dynamics among international graduate students and their families.