Kimberly J. Lopez

Research interests

I critically examine social structures that reinforce difference and marginalisation. As a community-engaged qualitative scholar, I value working collaboratively and creatively to know more about: leisure and self-care in caring work, invisibility in caring labour, aging well in long-term care homes, leisure in and through helping professions, and digital leisure technologies.  With a background in facilitating inclusive leisure and recreation experiences, I am committed to social change through transformational inquiry, inclusive organisation, advocacy, and activism. Guided by intersectionality, critical race and feminist theories, my current research with women of colour uses narrative methods (body maps and digital stories) to discuss the ways racialising, gendering, and classing occurs through caring labour and the impacts of these social processes.

Graduate supervision and student opportunities

I am currently accepting applications from graduate students with research interests related to:

• Leisure, well-being, and wellness
• Intersectionality
• Politics of care labour/work
• Caring practices, culture change, and leisure in long-term care
• Critical, critical race, feminist theories
• Qualitative methodologies (narrative inquiry, community engaged and action-oriented research)
• Arts-based and digital methods

Graduate studies application details

Teaching interests

• Therapeutic recreation, difference, inclusion, advocacy, and activism
• Race/ethnicity, gender, and class
• Wellness, well-being, health, and leisure
• Aging well and leisure in later life
• Qualitative methodologies and critical theories

Courses

• REC 357: Theories and Evidence for Therapeutic Recreation
• REC 405: Leisure and Well-being
• REC 455: Advanced Seminar in Therapeutic Recreation
• REC 673/REC 773: Advanced Qualitative Research Design

Education

BSc, University of Toronto

Post-Graduate Certificate in TR, Georgian College

MA, University of Waterloo

PhD, University of Waterloo

Awards and recognitions

• Awarded the Faculty of Health Emerging Graduate Mentorship Award in 2021. This award recognizes faculty who foster students’ skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, self-directed learning and communication; commitment to students’ personal and professional  development; effective research planning; and providing a supportive environment that stimulates creativity, debate, engagement and  progression toward career goals.
• Emerging Leisure Scholar Award from the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies (CALS) in 2020. This award recognises the significant early and potential contributions to the field of leisure studies by a Canadian leisure researcher who is within seven years of completing his or her doctoral studies.

Selected publications

See Google Scholar for full list of publications.