Sophie brings with her varied experience across the non-profit, education, and immigrant services sectors. She is passionate about equity focused programming that is responsive to community needs, and making academic research and engagement accessible to those outside of traditional academic spaces. Sophie began her non-profit career running programs for children and families in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, before moving into the refugee resettlement sector, working on specialty private sponsorship programs and access to education for refugee students. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Middle East Studies from the University of British Columbia, and as a student, was involved in the development of the Middle East Studies minor program. She is also a staff write with Spheres of Influence, a non-profit digital publication dedicated highlighting underreported stories in global affairs, where she focuses on forced migration, refugee resettlement, and development policy. Sophie enjoys listening to podcasts, reading historical fiction, and working on her Arabic skills.

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Professor Althea Thauberger is an artist, filmmaker and educator known for place-based experimental documentary projects that emerge from collaborative research and production processes. Her work—spanning photography, film, video, and performance—explores relationships between community stories and geopolitical histories. She was born in Saskatoon, and is of settler Scandinavian and Black Sea German descent.

Prof. Thauberger’s recent exhibitions include the Kaunas Biennial (2021); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2020); The Toronto Biennial of Art (2019), The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (2019); The National Gallery of Canada (2019); La musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2017), and the inaugural Karachi Biennale 2017.

Prof. Thauberger’s work has been the subject of numerous articles and reviews published by journals including Art Forum, Canadian Art, Tema Celeste, Flash Art, European Photography, Artnet Magazine, Frieze, the Guardian, C Magazine International, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, The Mainlander, and Flash Art. Her work has been the subject of monographs published by The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; The Liverpool Biennale; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Artspeak, Vancouver; and Musagetes, Guelph.

Photo credit: Zinnia Naqvi

Research Area: Photographic history and theory; documentary studies; collaborative/collective community research and production; place-based contemporary art, settler colonial studies, and archival studies.

Faculty Profile
Art History, Visual Art & Theory
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Terra Poirier is an interdisciplinary artist, research communicator, and M.Ed. student in the EDST ALE program. She works with photography, graphic narrative, and print media to explore memory, community, labour, and erasure. Terra’s book, Non-Regular: Precarious academic labour at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (UNIT/PITT, 2018), created with 26 instructors, received extensive media attention and has been presented in exhibitions, classrooms, and research contexts. Her work has been exhibited at the Polygon Gallery, Bainbridge Island Art Museum, Presentation House Gallery, and grunt gallery’s Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, and her award-winning short films have screened locally and internationally. Terra worked in public scholarship for almost two decades as a research communicator at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Research Area: Adult education, mentorship, trauma-informed andragogy, disability justice, and social justice education

Department of Educational Studies
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