I research and teach how adults learn — through, and in spite of, the transformations of work, life, and society they navigate. My current focus is on what enables adults to learn through career and life transitions, especially in contexts shaped by the digital transformation of work, global mobility, and shifts in how work is organized. I am a researcher and lecturer in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning at Goethe University Frankfurt, where my current work focuses on adult learning in career transitions in the context of technological transformation.
This work draws on more than two decades of applied experience — in non-profit leadership, university-community partnerships, work-integrated learning, and active-travel program development across Canada, the United States, France, and Germany. This practitioner background informs my research and grounds the consulting work I do through Akotor on organizational learning and adult learning in processes of change. The thread that connects these different strands of has been a steady one: Helping people and organizations learn, unlearn, and transform in order to realize their potential.

Research

My current research investigates adult learning in career and work transitions in the context of technological transformation. This builds on doctoral work, completed at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2024, on adult learning in migration transitions — an inquiry into how adults shape and are shaped by transitions across socially constructed boundaries, framed through pragmatist and practice-theoretical perspectives. A recent co-edited volume, Adult Education in Changing Times: Learning at the Nexus of Life, Work, and Transitions (Routledge, 2026), brings together international perspectives on adult learning across the life course in a period of rapid social, technological, and economic change. A current list of publications is maintained on ResearchGate and at the Goethe University faculty website.

Publications and conference presentations

For a list of current publications, please see ResearchGate.

Teaching

At Goethe University Frankfurt I teach across the Bachelor’s and Master’s programs in Educational Sciences on topics including adult learning in the (post-)digital age, learning during work and career transitions, adult education and sustainable development, community development, and non-Western perspectives on adult learning. Earlier teaching contexts include community-engaged scholarship coordination at Wilfrid Laurier University, work-integrated learning in social work at the University of Waterloo, experiential outdoor education in Canada, physiotherapy instruction in Ecuador, and workplace learning design in non-profit and for-profit organizations.

Courses developed and taught at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany at graduate and undergradate level focus on topics such as

  • Organizational development and social responsibility
  • Transitions in the life course and lifelong learning
  • Adult learning and digitization
  • Non-Western perspectives on learning
  • Theories of learning
  • Community development and learning spaces

Previously, with Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo in Canada, I developed curricula for community-engaged and work-integrated learning, as well as provided field instruction for Bachelor of Social Work students. Other teaching experience includes experiential outdoor education in Canada, physiotherapy instruction in Ecuador, computer skills training in a women's prison, and workplace learning design in NGO and for-profit organizations.

Practice

Through Akotor, I take on selected consulting and facilitation engagements on organizational learning and adult learning in change processes, drawing on research and on more than two decades of applied work in 20+ countries. Engagements typically focus on organizations working through transformation, transition, and longer arcs of strategic change. I approach this work from a stewardship orientation, attending to the conditions that allow people to find autonomy, mastery, and purpose in their work.

Go to Akotor

Contact

Feel free to contact me using this form.