Research Program
My interdisciplinary scholarship bridges social and medical sciences, translating knowledge across fields to deliver both rapid, practice-changing evidence and deeper theoretical insights. Learner agency and identity development are central to my work, shaped by my perspective as a woman, researcher, and person with a medical disability.
I study agency in the postdigital era — where digital and non-digital experiences intertwine to shape learning — through three guiding questions: How do we learn? Does technology influence learning? How does technology shape human agency?
Key Contributions
Areas of Focus
Postdigital Learner Agency
- This program of research advances the theory of learner agency in postdigital environments (Code, 2025) while critically examining how learning spaces shape and constrain agency (Code et al., 2020, 2022). It focuses on the design and assessment of virtual environments that foster agency, alongside investigations into the psychosocial impacts of technology through public pedagogy. This work also develops robust methods for measuring agency, including the integration of learning analytics to capture how agency is enacted in complex digital contexts.
Patient Agency
- This program of research advances the theory of agency in cardiovascular research (Code, Lannon, & Lutrin, 2025) and explores patient agency through biomedical case studies (Theberge et al., 2025). It draws on autoethnographic inquiry to examine patient experience (Code, 2019, 2022) and extends into the design and study of heart failure self-management and peer support technologies, with a focus on how patients enact agency in everyday care contexts.
- $3.5M+
- Total research funding
- 5
- Active grants
- SSHRC + CIHR
- Tri-council funded
- CRC
- Tier II · 2025–2030
Research is supported in part by
Current Work
Active Projects
Past Work
Completed Projects
vCHAT-HF
Virtual Community for Health literacy, self-cAre, and peer supporT in Heart Failure — Pilot RCT
vCHAT-MH
Virtual Community for Health literacy focusing on Mental Health during COVID-19
Virtual Clinics for HF
Multi-centre RCT to improve quality of care and outcomes in heart failure through virtual clinics
From the Heart
Canadian women's lived experiences of heart failure — a CIHR Gender, Sex & Health project
Beyond the Academy
Professional agency and learning in virtual contexts, with Hikma Strategies
Personalized Health Apps
Improving heart failure outcomes through apps that support self-management and adherence
ALIVE Research Lab
Agency in Learning, Immersive & Virtual Environments · UBC
Interested in collaborating?
I welcome partnerships on funded research, community initiatives, and scholarly projects.
