Karissa is a master’s student in the department of sociology studying under the supervision of Dr. Nathan Lauster. Her research interests include how surveillance technologies are used against marginalized populations locally and globally. She is particularly interested in how automated forms of surveillance and the state manipulation of systems of governance impact marginalized communities such as religious minorities, women, racialized populations, the unhoused, and the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

Throughout Karissa’s undergraduate degree in International Studies, she explored the ongoing effects of colonialism and the impacts of 20th-century global capitalism through an intersectional lens.

Karissa acknowledges she is a settler living on the unceded territories and traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples in Vancouver, Langley, and the Sunshine Coast. Specifically, the q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), q̓ʷɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓ (Kwantlen), Máthkwi (Matsqui), se’mya’me (Semiahmoo), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and shíshálh (Sechelt) First Nations.

Research Assistant (2023-current) for Dr. Darren Byler, SFU Department of International Studies, “Population Sorting Technologies as Infrastructures of Feeling in the United States, China and Israel,” (forthcoming).

British Columbia Graduate Scholarship, 2024

SFU Undergraduate Scholars Entrance Scholarship with Distinction, 2020