Photo of Kimberly, pictured in a yellow and white striped dress with a grey cardigan. She has black hair and dark brown eyes. She is looking just to the right of the frame with an open-mouthed smile. Background: green and pink graffiti on brick.

Photo of Kimberly, pictured in a yellow and white striped dress with a grey cardigan. She has black hair and dark brown eyes. She is looking just to the right of the frame with an open-mouthed smile. Background: green and pink graffiti on brick.

Kimberly Lopez

Assistant Professor, Department of Recreation & Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo

kimberly.lopez@uwaterloo.ca

Kimberly critically examines social structures that reinforce difference and marginalisation. As a community-engaged qualitative scholar, she values working collaboratively and creatively to know more about: leisure and self-care in caring work, invisibility in caring labour, aging well in long-term care homes, leisure in and through helping professions, and digital leisure technologies. With a background in facilitating inclusive leisure and recreation experiences, she is committed to social change through transformational inquiry, inclusive organisation, advocacy, and activism.

Current projects:

(1) Families Caring with Personal Support Workers (PSWs) – Strategies to Enhance Relational Care

(2) Designing Inclusive Culture - Identifying threats to reproducing disabling practices (partnership with Sadie's Place for Innovative Inclusion)

(3) A return to the body: A toolkit for connecting and re-centering leisure approaches through sensory stimulation