At Taylor Newberry Consulting we are grateful to be connected to incredibly talented, passionate and dedicated individuals. We are especially fortunate that some of these individuals have chosen to call themselves “TNCers”. We are continually inspired by members of our staff who share laughs, values, and learnings. Each month our website will feature a different member of our staff who will share a little bit about their work and a glimpse into their life.
This month, Karla sat down with Kimberley Goh to learn more about her and her work. Andrew Taylor (one of TNC’s owners) first met Kimberley at the University of Guelph when she took his graduate level Program Evaluation Course. By August 2020, Kimberley had graduated with a Master’s degree from the Applied Social Psychology Program at the University of Guelph, spent some time working in the field, and officially joined TNC as a Research Consultant. She has worked on a number of program design projects and demonstrates excellence in designing engaging, interactive and educational youth programming. She is thoughtful and considerate in meeting client needs and enjoys problem solving to find the best course of action. Our team appreciates her expertise and willingness to engage with complex topics related to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Read on for some more about Kimberley!
Karla: What’s your favorite thing about working at TNC?
Kimberley: I’d just say there’s a lot of things! Everyone at TNC is really friendly, helpful, and skilled at what they do, there’s a lot of flexibility, and there is room to take on projects that best suit my interests. One of my favourite things is being able to work on so many different projects with different clients and really kind of get involved with their work, what they’re doing and their cause–and to use my research background and knowledge to help them do the things that they do best. I think it’s a great opportunity at TNC to kind of do work on a wide range of different topics that I’m interested in, but wouldn’t otherwise be able to be involved in.
Karla: That’s great that you get to apply so many of your skills to areas of interest. And can you tell me a little bit about a project that you’re currently working on?
Kimberley: So something that I really love is a lot of my projects recently have been focused on curriculum development. It’s not something that I would’ve thought I would be doing when I joined as a research consultant, but to be able to leverage my education background and look at creating lessons or activities for front line staff to use with youth and in a number of different organizations is great. I think it’s a bit of the best of both worlds in using my research background to do things like interviews and focus groups and literature reviews, but also my teaching background of finding ways to make activities engaging for youth and easy to follow for the teachers or for the staff.
For example, I’m currently working on a project with Plan International to develop a program for self-esteem for girls and gender diverse youth. And it’s really interesting and exciting because we worked on a previous project with them refreshing a curriculum that had already been created like 10 years ago. And so now we’re at the point of creating new materials, using that knowledge and background and what we’ve done in the previous project, along with identified gaps and also literature of what needs to be done to make this new program engaging and relevant to today’s youth. And so that’s really exciting.
Karla: So cool. And can you tell us maybe a little bit more about your education background?
Kimberley: Teaching is always something that I have been passionate about. I did my Bachelor’s of Education at UBC and I focused on teaching the middle school ages. I worked with a gifted class full of students who were eager to learn and so it really gave me a lot of room to kind of explore the full potential–like I focused on classroom gamification. And so it was to kind of challenge them by creating fun and thematic lessons which could get them excited to learn. They were all really engaged with that.
Karla: That’s awesome that you get to apply those skills to your projects now. What’s one of your favorite memories from the past few months at TNC?
Kimberley: My favorite memory so far would have to be working with Canada’s National Ballet School (NBS) on a previous project. I was interviewing seniors who participated in an online dance program that they started during COVID. They were piloting the new program for seniors, uploading videos so that seniors can dance from home wherever they are. I’d done a round of interviews after their first six-week program and got feedback from seniors. In general, the seniors tended to like the videos, and they had a couple of suggestions on how they could be improved. I took those suggestions back to NBS and then they created and released the second round of the videos and did a second round of interviews. And so in that second round, hearing some seniors who participated in both sets say, “oh yeah, the program got a lot better this time!” was really satisfying. And like, “these are the things that I noticed that I would’ve liked changed and they changed it for the second time”.
I think it was just seeing that impact and how much the seniors appreciated having a program like that, but also having a program that was just continuing to get even better for them. I think it really validates the work that we were doing and having people participate in these kinds of interviews because it’s really the most direct evidence of being able to make the programs better for them using that research to reach that kind of outcome.
Karla: Yeah, so the important process of using evidence to inform action. What’s something outside of work that makes you smile?
Kimberley: I think it’s just being able to connect with people and having video calls with people that I haven’t talked to in a long time. I don’t know if I would say it’s like a specific call or specific person that I talked to, but recently, I’ve been making more of an effort to kind of connect with friends that I haven’t talked to in years. And so just like that moment of seeing them for the first time in forever, whether it’s in person or whether it’s online… I did an exchange in Japan like eight years ago. And a lot of those friends I haven’t seen since I’ve been back there. And so just seeing my friend’s face pop up on the screen since it’s been forever. There’s so much to catch up on. Yeah. That really makes me smile.
Karla: I bet! And last question, finish this sentence “when I’m not working at TNC, I’m most likely…”
Kimberley: Playing games! Either video games or board games. I’m a big fan of both.
Karla: What’s one of your favourites right now?
Kimberley: Well, there are so many in terms of board games, I think my favorite is Celestia. It’s a game where you’re kind of working together to get further along a path, but also kind of playing for yourself to stop along the path before the group fails. And so cooperation goes up to a certain point and you just kinda have to be smart about how you do that.
Karla: Yeah. And you organized a game night for TNC while I was on parental leave right?
Kimberley: Yeah. And I’m hoping to do more of those in the future. It’s a lot of fun and it’s a great way I find to really connect with a group. I’m a pretty social gamer and that most of the games that I do are with other people and I have the most fun playing games with, so yeah. I think there’s a game for everyone.
Thanks Kimberley! Stay tuned for next month when we feature another amazing member of our staff.