Nathalie Down

Education

Bachelor of Arts, Majors in Gender Studies and Environmental Studies, University of Victoria.
Diploma of Social Justice, University of Victoria.

Specialization

Social Innovation, Experience Design, Communication Strategy, Creative Content, Youth Education, Gender, Critical Theory, and Serious Gaming.

Biography

Nathalie Down is a facilitator, researcher and education designer specializing in transformative change and social innovation. She has worked professionally in the fields of restorative justice and education since 2008, most recently heading the Saanich Community Justice Program, the KidStart Victoria mentoring program and the Girls Circle empowerment program in Victoria, BC. Her interests in digital media stem from her commitment to greater public health and social justice — she is interested in finding innovative uses of 21st-century digital tools to address 20th-century social problems. Academically, Nathalie is an experienced writer, ethnographer and participatory action researcher. Her humanities expertise includes intersectional feminism, complex systems ecology, and more recently, the digital humanities. Her current research interests include serious gaming for social change, digital user-generated databases, and feminist user experience design.

Why Digital Media?

In the realm of digital, anything is possible. We can reinvent information architectures and power structures to reflect or create whatever dynamics we choose, should we have the critical insights and technical skills to do so. I find this incredibly exciting. I want to build bridges between human-computer interaction and critical social theory, explore user experience design through a lens of applied ethics, to connect industry capacities with social justice complexities. I seek to harness the untapped potential of digital media to empower, educate, and emancipate. I want to help design a future marked by deep insight, radical innovation, gender equality, and social equity.

Publications

"Cyborg Feminists in the 21st Century", Ryerson Digital Media Review