Playlab Director & Principal Investigator

​​Leslie Stewart Rose, Ed.D., is a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and director of The Play Lab. She is interested in how play enriches our lives across the lifespan.  Her current research seeks to understand the power of play and games for learning in the classroom and community organizations. She also has an interest in supporting and understanding play-lives of educators. Previously a school teacher, she is committed to collaborative inquiry with educators to help them harness the power of play pedagogies. In her role at the university, she teaches courses on play, games, creativity, and the arts, as related to education.  Other interests include assessment, teacher learning, and a relevant, multidisciplinary, issues-based curriculum that promotes critical and creative thinking.

Principal Investigator

Paul Darvasi is an educator, game designer, writer, speaker, and curriculum designer whose work looks at the intersection of games, culture, and learning. He teaches English and media studies, and his doctoral research explores how commercial video games can be used as texts for critical analysis by adolescents. His also writes about topics in VR, XR, digital culture, assessment in virtual spaces, autism and online communities, social and emotional learning with digital and tabletop role-playing games, and informal learning spaces. He has designed pervasive games that include The Ward Game, based on Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Blind Protocol, a cyber warfare simulation that instructs on online security, privacy and surveillance. Paul has worked with the US Department of Education, UNESCO, foundry10, Consumers International, iThrive, and Connected Camps and has participated in several international research projects. He recently wrote a working paper for UNESCO on how commercial video games can be used for peace education and conflict resolution. Paul’s work has been featured on PBS, NPR, CBC, the Huffington Post, Polygon, Killscreen, Gamasutra, Sterne, Endgadget, Edsurge, Edutopia, and MindShift. Most recently, Paul is the instructor for CTL5046 – Games and Learning at OISE/UT in the Curriculum, Teaching & Learning Department.

Ximena Martinez-Trabucco is a researcher in the Sociology and Equity Studies of Education-Social Justice Department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She is interested in notions of what “living well” means from non-Western perspectives. Her research interests focus on Indigenous Ecological Knowledge systems and environmental education. Her current dissertation project seeks to understand how Andean principles of relationality, complementarity, and reciprocity shape the relationships of people in their daily lives and how they may be applied to social relations in the school system. Before her graduate studies, she worked as a teacher and researcher for six years in the northernmost region of Chile. As an educator, her work was mainly with vulnerable populations that included indigenous communities, migrants, youth in segregated schools, and incarcerated indigenous women. As a researcher, she worked collaboratively on investigations related to the area of intercultural and indigenous education, strategies for sustainable development in rural areas and health access in multicultural/multiracial contexts. She argues that play is a central force for living well and that living well is deeply influenced by the interplay of nature and society.

Graduate Assistant

Kathy H. Zhou (Sher/Her)  is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and teacher whose work navigates cultural identity, migration, and personal narratives through drawing, painting, animation, and game design. Integrating humor and social critique, she challenges conventions of materiality and representation. Her practice amplifies immigrant perspectives, fostering dialogue on belonging, memory, and societal boundaries.

Graduate Assistant

Quinn Jacobs, Ph.D (he/him) is a Toronto-based composer, artistic director, and lecturer. Over 45 of his compositions and arrangements have been performed across North America, including recent commissions from the Esprit Orchestra, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, NOW Ensemble, and Brussels Muzieque. He is the founding artistic director of Din of Shadows, a non-proscenium performing arts company that has produced 24 interdisciplinary world premieres since its inception in 2017. Quinn has also been a music educator for 15 years, and currently works as a sessional lecturer at UofT in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media.

Graduate Assistant

Garrick Burron is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto's OISE, focusing on classroom design, technology integration, and STEM pedagogy. With a background as a high school science teacher in Edmonton and prior research at the University of Alberta, he explores innovative educational technology to support teachers.

Sarah is a Science and Geography teacher at St. Michael’s Choir School and is currently completing her master's in curriculum studies and teacher development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Graduate Assistant

Hemani Rajpaul is a graduate student pursuing her PhD in Education, with a focus on Languages and Literacies education at OISE/UofT. Her research currently investigates ancestral language maintenance among diaspora communities. Hemani is also a North Indian classical musician and Kathak dancer. She currently teaches music to beginner students at her community temple.

Niall Ng is an educator, theatre artist, and games enthusiast.  He is a graduate student in the Master of Teaching Program with a concentration in dramatic arts at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.  He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Montclair State University.  He has been teaching acting classes for many years as a freelance teaching artist, and is now developing his career as a classroom teacher.  After spending a few years acting professionally and traveling across Asia and Europe, he took a leave from the United States to study abroad in Canada.  At OISE, he conducted research addressing gender binary and game culture.  He continues to seek ways to bring the educational benefits of games and play to as wide an audience as possible.

June Countryman is a retired educator with lengthy experience in K-12 music classrooms, choral settings and as a professor of music education at UPEI. Her research interests include children’s and adolescents’ uses of music in play.

Krystal Dos Santos is a recent Publishing Certificate graduate from Ryerson University, with a BA in English and Classical Civilizations from the University of Toronto. An editor at Grey House Publishing, she also coaches youth soccer and Ultimate Frisbee, competing internationally. Krystal excels in time management and high-pressure environments.