Many years ago, I attended a workshop on developing a personal mission statement. We were encouraged to craft a phrase—succinct, memorable, and aspirational—that would guide both our professional and personal lives. Mine has served me well ever since: “To contribute positively to every relationship, environment, and system in my life.”  Over more than four decades, my connection with York University—in several different roles—has been central to my efforts to live out this mission.  

Nowhere has that mission come more vividly to life than at York’s Las Nubes EcoCampus in Costa Rica, high in the Talamanca Mountains. It is a place I will return to later in this piece, but I want to begin there, because it captures something essential about what York does at its best: it brings together people and worlds that would otherwise never meet.  

On a single morning at Las Nubes, students from Toronto might be working alongside Costa Rican farmers and community members, conservation scientists in conversation with families who have lived in those mountains for generations, and local knowledge sitting side by side with university research. York’s role is not to study a place from a distance but to create a meeting ground—a space where very different forms of expertise can recognize and learn from one another. That, to me, is contributing positively to a relationship, an environment, and a system all at once, and the thread of connection it represents runs through everything that follows. 

My path to York began after completing my undergraduate degree at McMaster University and then working there as a research coordinator in an infant vision lab. But I knew I wanted to do clinical psychology. So, I came to York in 1982 to a relatively new PhD program called Clinical Psychology: Developmental Emphasis, which evolved into the Clinical-Developmental program we have now. While a doctoral student, I “grew up” professionally at TRE-ADD (Treatment, Research and Education for Autism and Developmental Disorders) at Thistletown Regional Centre, a comprehensive program serving children and youth with severe autism and intellectual disability. There, I completed my internship, conducted research, and collected data for my dissertation, grounded in a model of family stress and coping shaped directly by my work with families.  

After completing my PhD at York in 1990, I remained at Thistletown as the Psychologist and Coordinator of Research. I was responsible for research and program evaluation, psychological assessment, and family services, and I developed an intensive behavioural intervention kindergarten program. It was a dream job for a scientist-practitioner, integrating clinical service, program development, and research. I also had the privilege of supervising York graduate students (and others) in assessment/diagnosis and research and served as the professional practice lead for Psychology across the larger Thistletown organization.   

A secondment to the Ministry of Community and Social Services allowed me to contribute to the development of Ontario’s publicly funded early intensive behavioural intervention program for preschool children with autism—at the time, a globally leading initiative. It was an especially energizing period, demonstrating the transformative potential of research findings taken to scale.  What an exciting way to live out my mission at a systems level! 

When an opportunity arose to return to York as a faculty member in 2002, I felt a strong sense of coming full circle. Since then, my academic career has offered rich and varied avenues for contribution across the three pillars of teaching, research, and service. 

My teaching has focused primarily on graduate courses in psychological assessment, autism, clinical supervision, and professional ethics. I have also been actively involved with the York University Psychology Clinic (YUPC), our state-of-the-art training clinic that provides assessment/diagnosis and psychotherapy services to the York community and the broader public, as well as continuing education opportunities for community professionals. Perhaps the most meaningful aspect of my work has been the supervision and mentorship of graduate students in both research and clinical training. Their intelligence, dedication, and compassion always impress and inspire me. Supporting their development—both as scholars and clinicians—has been a great privilege. Seeing over 20 former doctoral students go on to make significant contributions in clinical and research settings is deeply gratifying. 

My “lab” or research group also has a mission statement: “Dedicated to enhancing the lives of children with developmental disabilities and empowering their families.” Our research has focused particularly on children with significant support needs, who are often excluded from or underrepresented in research, as well as on the experiences of their families. Through initiatives such as our CIHR-funded GO4KIDDS (Great Outcomes for Kids Impacted by Severe Developmental Disabilities) team, we have examined health, well-being, and social inclusion of both children and parents, using a range of methodologies. Family research in my lab has included families of different cultures and examines both positive and negative aspects of families’ experiences. Current projects include developing and validating measures of “educational quality of life” and the SAFE-AID measure (Self-injury and Aggression Functional Evaluation for Autism and Intellectual Disability), as well as a Systematic Review of selection bias in autism research (the bias being the exclusion of autistic people with intellectual disability). We are also collaborating on projects around interventions for autistic children and adults. 

My commitment to contributing positively has also shaped my service within the University in such roles as Director of Clinical Training for the Clinical-Developmental Area and Graduate Program Director for our large Psychology Graduate Program (about 350 students and 90 faculty in seven Areas of Psychology). These roles have been meaningful to me as they provide many ways to contribute to improving grad students’ experience. I have also participated in the Faculty of Graduate Studies, especially initiatives related to improving graduate supervision, served in York’s Senate and Senate Executive, and supported departmental tasks like Executive, hiring and tenure committees and so on. Even though this means going to a lot of meetings, I believe these to be important activities to help improve our systems and processes and this work has reinforced my appreciation for the collective effort required at different levels to sustain a thriving academic community like York. 

Beyond the University, I have sought to contribute to the broader professions of psychology and behaviour analysis. As an academic member of the Council of the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario, I have been involved with registration and oral exams and helped facilitate the onboarding of the profession of Behaviour Analysis into the College, including helping to develop the ethics and jurisprudence modules. I was fortunate that my position as a Professor at York provided the flexibility for me to take on these types of roles and contribute to these larger initiatives. 

In my personal life, the same mission continues to guide me—whether through community involvement, environmental stewardship, or small everyday actions. One particularly meaningful intersection of my personal and professional commitments has been my long-standing involvement with York’s Las Nubes EcoCampus in Costa Rica. My husband, Don Downer, and I have been involved with the Las Nubes project and the Eco-campus in Costa Rica for 13 years.   

After several holidays in Costa Rica, as “eco-tourists”, we heard about a field course run by the then Faculty of Environmental Studies. We applied—and were accepted—as undergraduates. We were inspired by the beauty and enormous potential of the Las Nubes Nature Preserve—donated by Dr. Woody Fisher—in the Talamanca Mountains on one side of the Rio Peñas Blancas, as well as the reclaimed agricultural property across the river where York had a small acreage at the time. So, we were happy to contribute positively by donating money for York to acquire more land to add to the part where the Lillian Meighen Wright Centre now stands.  

Much of that property has been replanted and is attracting more birds and animals because of the greater habitat for them. Subsequently, another 75-acre property nearby became available, and we were able to obtain that for York as well, for its protection, research, and future plans. We called it “Vista Grande”. It presents priceless research opportunities for our faculty and students (and others) working with the local community there. For example, a tiny amphibian called the Harlequin Toad, thought to be extinct, was found there a few years ago. That rediscovery was only possible because reclaimed farmland was reconnected to protected forest, allowing species to move once more across a landscape that human activity had divided.  

The same instinct to reconnect what has been separated runs through the planned Library building, which is designed to serve the surrounding community and the Centre alike. It will be a shared space where local residents, visiting students, and researchers can occupy the same room, and where the boundary between “the university” and “the community” quietly dissolves. The current initiative at Las Nubes is to raise money for this new Library building, so I invite readers to consider contributing positively to that worthwhile project. 

When the Las Nubes Project started offering York undergraduate courses there regularly, including the Semester Abroad after the Centre was built in 2016, I was, of course, thrilled to be selected to develop and teach a course there, Environmental Psychology, which is all about the impact of the environment on people and the impact of people on the environment. I’ve done it three times now, in 2022, 2024, and 2026. It is an intense and exciting experience—a whole course in 10 days!—which students describe as transformative and life-changing.  

Part of what makes it so powerful is that it puts students into direct contact with people, environments, and ways of living they would rarely encounter on a city campus, and lets them discover how much they have to learn from that contact. Teaching there is one way I can share my commitment to nature, Las Nubes, and York, and live out my mission. All those students who have been inspired by the Las Nubes experience become ambassadors for the program and for the environment, which is great to witness. Faculty colleagues are also showing interest in teaching there, which I am so happy to see. 

This commitment to environmental stewardship isn’t just about tropical ecosystems, though. At our property on Georgian Bay, we have also embarked on some environmental restoration by “rewilding” part of our land. We started by digging a 30 x 100 ft pond and then planting about 300 trees and bushes around it. We have tried to create better habitats for various butterflies, bees, birds, and animals, by planting native trees and flowers. It has done very well and has attracted many more creatures, great and small. One day during spring migration we counted 50 species of birds on, over, or in the water around our property in one day (yes, we take data!).  Although it has been a lot of work, it has been a powerful reminder that thoughtful, sustained effort can yield meaningful change in complex systems.   

Looking back, what stands out most to me is not any single role or achievement, but the opportunity to participate in and contribute to communities of learning, caring, and shared purpose. York University has been central to that journey for me—providing a place where ideas, relationships, and commitments can take root and grow and flourish. If there is a unifying thread, it is the belief that even modest, consistent efforts to “contribute positively” can, over time, shape people, programs, and environments in enduring ways. That belief continues to sustain me during these challenging times, and it still inspires hope for what we can accomplish together at York University.