She holds a bachelor’s degree in Natural Resource Conservation from the University of British Columbia, a master’s degree in Environmental Sociology from thr University of New Brunswick, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Sociology from the University of Alberta. Her interests are in how civil society engages with the natural world and environmental issues. This line of inquiry includes individual, household behaviours; lifestyle choices such as downshifting; and public sphere actions including relational activism. She has used a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods and participant samples at municipal, provincial, and national scales, publishing findings in Human Ecology, Rural Sociology, Environmental Politics, the Canadian Journal of Sociology, and others.