I am an emerging designer, researcher, and academic from Calgary, Canada. I am in the final year of my practice-based design research PhD at the University of New South Wales School of Art & Design in Sydney, Australia. My research draws on Actor-Network Theory and Co-Design to critically examine 3D printing technology and its role in maker culture. From a sustainability perspective, my work uses Critical Making tactics to interrogate how 3D printers support wasteful, exclusive, and exploitative maker practices. Through practice-based studio experiments, my design work reuses waste plastic and bioplastic materials, ceramics, electronics, wood, and other makerspace by-products.

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Bioplastics are plant-based alternatives to petroleum-based plastics and will replace traditional plastics within the next decade. Bioplastics are hypothetically recyclable and compostable yet have the same problem as traditional plastics: the infrastructure to manage their waste streams have not kept up with its production. The WHO has deemed microplastic particles an omnipresent problem in the environment and the WHO as well as design researchers, and sustainability-oriented do-it-yourself'ers (DIYers) conclude that there is an environmental exigency for investigating alternative methods for disposing of waste plastics. My work draws from designers using Critical Making concepts and DIY plastic recycling methods to critically examine disposal options for the increasingly commonplace bioplastic polylactic acid (PLA).