The Research Team

Lead by Leslie Chan, the team is a diverse group of researchers and students who are dedicated to enabling open access networks. The research we are embarking requires a variety of perspectives and skill sets that is provided by our diverse team. Our collaborative working environment allows us to compare and draw parallels between mapping and financial data while understanding their role within the publishing industry. The core research team is listed below:

Leslie Chan

Leslie Chan is the Research Coordinator and Principal Investigator of the OCSDNetwork. He is the Associate Director of the Centre for Critical Development Studies (CCDS) at the University of Toronto Scarborough, where he teaches courses on knowledge and media for development. Leslie has a long standing research interest in the role of knowledge production and dissemination in development, and in particular the role of Open Access (OA) in addressing the imbalance in the global knowledge flow and the dominance of certain ways of legitimizing knowledge. Since 2000, Leslie has served as the director of a South-North collaborative project known as Bioline International, a platform that provides OA for over 30 research journals from the global South. Leslie has been active in the experimentation and implementation of scholarly communication initiatives of varying scales around the world.

Denisse Albornoz

Denisse is a Research Associate for the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network (OCSDNet). She is an International Development and Sociology graduate from the University of Toronto, and is interested in inclusive and transgressive approaches to knowledge construction and dissemination. In Toronto, she has facilitated inclusive education programs, exploring the use of art or media in alternative pedagogies and research practices with youth. She has also worked with the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, mapping change-making practices at the intersections of new media, art and activism in South Asia. At OCSDNet, she is researching power and inequality in discourse construction about Open Science.

Maggie Huang

Alejandro Posada

Alejandro Posada is a Research Associate with the OCSDNet, based in Toronto. He graduated from the International Development and Economics programs at the University of Toronto Scarborough and is interested in the political economy and financialization of the publishing industry as well as the synergies between open science and traditional knowledge systems in agriculture. He previously worked with the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems in Chennai, assessing the economic viability of revitalizing traditional knowledge in agriculture as well as researching the political ecology of India’s agricultural micro-insurance industry. Alejandro is a Colombian citizen who has lived in seven different countries including Canada, India, Costa Rica, Russia, England, and Venezuela. During his time in Canada, he has been involved with various community organizations such as the Stop Community Food Centre, WUSC Student Refugee Program, and Frontier College.

Saman Goudarzi

Saman Goudarzi is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scarborough completing a degree in International Development Studies and Geography. A cartographer and researcher, her interests lie at the intersection of technology, data and labour. She is currently an intern at the Centre for Internet and Society, researching platform actors in various Indian sectors.

George Chen

George Chen is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scarborough completing a degree in International Business and Economics. He is interested in the economics of development as well as the drivers of academic discourse.  He had worked as a metadata assistant at Bioline international, facilitating open access and article publishing.

Tasneem Mewa

Tasneem Mewa is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto pursuing an Honours Bachelor of Arts in International Development Studies. She is interested in critiquing neoclassical economic theory and deconstructing conventional notions of spatatiality. She enjoys critical writing and researching and currently works as a Senior Editor for the student run development journal, The Undercurrent.

Whether you’re a first year undergraduate student or in grad school, we are always looking to welcome new members! For more information, visit our How to Get Involved page.