ARCYP Executive Members
Derritt Mason
(President)
Dr. Derritt Mason is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Calgary, where he teaches and researches at the intersection of children’s and young adult literature, media and cultural studies, and gender and sexuality. He is the author of Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and Culture and the co-editor, with Kenneth B. Kidd, of Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality. Dr. Mason also serves as an Executive Board Member of the Children’s Literature Association.
Catherine Burwell
(Vice-President)
Dr. Catherine Burwell is an Associate Professor in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. Her interdisciplinary research explores the pedagogical implications of youth digital culture. Catherine’s current research, funded by the Spencer Foundation, examines young people’s experiences evaluating, discussing and sharing media related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Catherine is also interested in emerging conceptualizations of media education and digital literacy. Her work has been published in education, cultural studies and communication journals. Before joining the University of Calgary, Catherine worked as a secondary school English and Media Studies teacher with the Toronto District School Board for more than 10 years.
Erin Spring
(Secretary-Treasurer)
Dr. Spring is an Associate Professor in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. She holds a BA (Honours) in English from Trent University and a B.Ed from Queen’s University. Erin was a classroom teacher in London, UK, before returning to graduate studies. She earned an MPhil and PhD from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. Between 2014-2017 she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Child and Youth Studies at the University of Lethbridge. Broadly speaking, Erin’s interdisciplinary research focuses on young people’s literacies, texts, and cultures.
Cameron Greensmith
(Member-at-Large)
Dr. Greensmith (he/him/they/them) holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Brock University, Master of Arts in Women and Gender Studies and Doctor of Philosophy in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto and is a Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work and Human Services at Kennesaw State University. Dr. Greensmith researches the ways systems and structures of power and inequality impact helping professions, such as schooling, non-profits, and social work. Dr. Greensmith’s research utilizes anti-racist, anti-colonial, and queer perspectives to investigate the ways helping professionals develop relationships with and support marginalized youth, adults, and communities. Dr. Greensmith serves as a Member-At-Large for the Association for Research in the Cultures of Young People and is an Editorial Board Member of the journals Girlhood Studies and Journal of LGBT Youth.
Julie Garlen
(Member-at-Large)
Julie C. Garlen is an Associate Professor of Childhood and Youth Studies at Carleton University, where she serves as the Co-Director of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies. Previously, she worked in early childhood teacher education in the U.S. South for 11 years. She is a critical cultural theorist of curriculum and childhood. Her work in cultural curriculum studies has explored how culture functions symbolically, institutionally, and pedagogically in the lives of children and youth. Her current work in critical childhood studies is informed by an interest in the ways cultural discourses shape the lives of children through ideologies of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Her work has appeared in numerous journals such as Childhood, Feminist Media Studies, and Journal of Consumer Culture. She is the co-editor of The Child in Question: Childhood Texts, Cultures, and Curricula (Routledge, 2020), Teaching with Disney (Peter Lang, 2016) and Disney, Culture, and Curriculum (Routledge, 2016). She was a co-organizer of The Republic of Childhood Youth Forum in 2019 and was recently featured in The Conversation.
Abigail Shabtay
(Member-at-Large)
Dr. Abigail Shabtay is an Assistant Professor in the Children, Childhood, and Youth program at York University. She holds a PhD from McGill University, focusing on drama-based research with youth, and an MA from King’s College London (UK) in International Child Studies. Dr. Shabtay’s research focuses on children’s rights, youth activism, and drama-based participatory action research. She is currently the Principal Investigator for four SSHRC-funded projects related to children, youth, and the performing arts. She has received awards for excellence in teaching and research in her field, including the Humanities Excellence in Teaching Award, Ada Slaight Drama-in-Education Award for 2018-2019, and the Jackie Kirk Fieldwork Award in 2018-2019. She has served on organizing committees for seven national academic conferences in her field and is the chair of the annual Children, Youth and Performance Conference.
Tyler Perry
(Graduate Student Representative)
Tyler Perry is working on his M.A. in Educational Research, Language and Literacy at the University of Calgary Werklund School of Education. He teaches high school English language arts and is one of the executive organizers of the Alberta provincial school poetry slam competition, Can You Hear Me Now?, which is going into its eighth year in 2021. Tyler holds a M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and a B.Ed. from the University of Alberta. He is the author of three books of poetry: Lessons in Falling (2010), Belly Full of Rocks (2016), and Plausible Wrong Answers (2020). He is a 2020 recipient of the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship (AGES) - Master's Research award. His current research is a hermeneutic inquiry into students experiences with poetry memorization and recitation in secondary school.