Some years ago, in the midst of an existential crisis, I spent many hours trying to understand my life by reconstructing its past. I was surprised by how much of this effort to make my own personal mirror of history consisted of the careful drawing of maps -- maps of transcontinental migrations, old neighbourhoods, social networks, and other more abstract versions of cause and effect. Since that time, I have become obsessed with the many ways that space and place play a role in our lives from the mundane (how do we find our way to the grocery store?) to the sublime (what is it about the space inside a large cathedral that takes our breath away?).

In my scientific life, I study such issues by presenting people with problems of space both in the real world and in simulated worlds generated using the tools of virtual reality. You can read more about my work at the website of the University of Waterloo’s Research Lab for Immersive Virtual Environments (RELIVE).

In my writing life, my greatest ambition is to illuminate the connections between the organization of the human mind and the order (or disorder) of everyday life. I believe that the solutions to the world’s most important problems lie more in understanding our psychology than in advancing our technology.