Chris is an experienced policy researcher with an abiding interest in measuring what matters.

For 14 years, Chris supported policy and program decision-making in support of children, families, and neighbourhoods in Hamilton, Ontario. At the core of much of this work was data collected through the Early Development Instrument, a population-level measure of the developmental health of children prior to Grade 1. But how much do child development measures tell us about children's lives? Are children really "thriving" if they are meeting (or exceeding) their "milestones"? This challenge inspired Chris’ current work.

Currently, Chris is a PhD student in Sociology at McGill University, following earlier studies in Economics (Carleton), Philosophy (Toronto, Erasmus), and Digital Humanities (McGill). Measuring what matters presupposes some consensus about what it is that does matter, but one need not look far in today’s world to know that such consensus is rarely to be found.

Is there a way to measure what matters to a dissensus about what matters?

Perhaps, if we can structure that dissensus. Chris is exploring this possibility in the case of childhood, using the methods of computational text analysis.

Outside of academia, Chris’ interests include kayaking and canoeing, dancing, the performing arts, craft beer, speculative fiction, and table-top role-playing games.