TALON Team

Editors

Sandra Abegglen (editor and interviewer) is a researcher in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at the University of Calgary where she explores learning and teaching in the design disciplines as the project lead of TALON, the Teaching and Learning Online Network. Sandra has an MSc in social research and an MA in learning and teaching in higher education. She has over eight years’ experience as a senior lecturer in education studies. Her research interests are online education, creative learning and teaching, mentoring, visual narratives, identity and qualitative research methods. She has published widely on emancipatory learning and teaching practice, and playful pedagogy. Sandra is a certified practitioner for learning development and a fellow of Advance HE. She has been awarded the Team Teaching Award 2020 by the University of Calgary.

Fabian Neuhaus, PhD (editor) is an associate professor at the University of Calgary with the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. He is the research lead for the Richard Parker Initiative (RPI) and the principal investigator for TALON and NEXTCalgary. His research interests are the temporal aspects of the urban environment, focusing on the topics of habitus, type, and ornament in terms of activity, technology, and memory. He has worked with architecture and urban design practices in the UK and Switzerland as well as on research projects at universities in Switzerland, Germany, and the UK. He is passionate about learning and teaching, and design pedagogy.

Kylie Wilson (editor) is a graduate student in the master of architecture program at the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape, University of Calgary. In the 2020–2021 academic year, she completed the foundation year. Before pursuing architecture, she graduated with a bachelor of arts in communications, minoring in political science, also from the University of Calgary. She joined the TALON team as graduate assistant researcher in May 2021 and works actively on the project’s audiovisual content collection, newsletters and TALON publications. She is passionate about storytelling and knowledge sharing through media and built form and empowering users through placemaking in architecture.

Interviewers

Martina MacFarlane (interviewer) is a community planner, researcher, and artist living on Treaty 7 territory. She was born in Vancouver, lived and learned in a number of Canadian cities, and came to call Alberta home where she completed a bachelor of fine arts at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and later her master of planning from the University of Calgary. Martina brings a unique background to her planning practice from art, design, and visual communications to interests in social inclusion, equity, and belonging. She takes a hands-on and iterative approach and has worked in community art initiatives and instruction, as well as on social innovation and research projects in inclusive and affordable housing, community safety, and sustainable urban design.

During the second term of her graduate studies, the COVID-19 pandemic marked the sudden shift to online courses, communications, and—well, everything. In spring of 2020, Martina joined the TALON project as a graduate assistant researcher, exploring what this shift meant for teaching and learning in the design disciplines and the challenges and opportunities of online collaboration.

Mac McGinn (interviewer) is motivated by the power of architecture to be solution driven by shaping how we think and feel about the world and set the stage for social behaviours. Due to rapid and dynamic changes in the political, economic, and social environments we live in, the built environment is uniquely positioned to provide solutions to challenges that our world confronts. Also, Mac’s passion lies in the business development and operations within architectural firms to facilitate ongoing growth through B2B and B2C relationships, marketing, and office operations.

Mac is among the 2022 graduating class in the University of Calgary’s master of architecture program. He previously completed a bachelor of business administration at Mount Royal University with a minor in international business. He worked in the Calgary business community for five years prior to continuing his education. As a result of his passionate interest in design, he switched gears and pursued a career in architecture. Mac was a graduate assistant researcher working on the Teaching and Learning Online Network project (TALON).