Tanya Behrisch

I am both an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Education and Director of Simon Fraser University’s Co‑operative Education program. I work with a team of 55 educators who facilitate 3,200 paid Co‑op work terms/year. Co-op is one of SFU’s largest distributed learning platforms. My work sits at the intersection of learning and leadership during times of disruption, where questions of institutional change, relationality and transformation are lived rather than abstract.

Alongside my senior leadership role, I am a philosopher of education and arts‑based scholar. My work engages posthumanism, hermeneutics, queer studies and transdisciplinary inquiry. My recent book, Mastery’s Paradox: Making Friends with Strangeness in a More‑Than‑Human World (Peter Lang), explores modernity’s relationship to divergent concepts of mastery, including artistic and ecological mastery.

My forthcoming book, Habits to Finish Your PhD Before Your PhD Finishes You (2027), is a practical guide for doctoral students wanting to finish what they started. I offer practical hacks, such as how to crush imposter syndrome, writer’s block and perfectionism.

I write, paint and think with the more‑than‑human world, often outdoors and in collaboration with others. I am drawn to scholarship that is embodied, irreverent and alive to what exceeds us. I welcome opportunities to work with graduate students and colleagues as a supervisor, advisor, collaborator, speaker and mentor, particularly where research invites creative risk and self-exploration.

As a published, internationally engaged scholar, I write and present across arts-based, philosophical fields, with recent work spanning Vienna, Siena, Urbana and Montreal, with SFU recognizing my doctoral work through the Dean’s Convocation Medal and the President’s PhD Scholarship.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanyabehrisch/   

Books

(2026). Mastery’s Paradox: Making Friends with Strangeness in a More Than Human World. Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers.

(2027). Habits to Finish Your PhD Before Your PhD Finishes You. [In press]. Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University.

Refereed Journal Articles

• Behrisch, T., & Jardine, D.W. (2026) Origin Stories in Writing and Painting. In D. Jardine (in preparation).  What Exactly are We Waiting For? On The Pleasures and Sorrows of Ecological and Pedagogical Attentiveness.
• Behrisch, T., Fernandes, K., Tucker, M. (2026). Sharing food as gentle activism: A transcultural journey towards veganism and animal kinship [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University.
• Rumjahn, A., & Behrisch, T. (2025). Contemplating post-graduate grief: Re-evaluating our relationship to the future. Holistic Education Review, 5(2), 1-11. https://her.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/her/article/view/3338
• Behrisch, T., Rumjahn, A., & Yakamov, C. (2025). Healing in relation: Honoring post-graduate grief as an opportunity for relational scholarship. Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, 3(1), 3–27.
• Behrisch, T., & Jardine, D. (2024). The art of coming upon something. Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, 9(1), 69–94. https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29790
• Behrisch, T. (2024). Storywood: Collaborating with opaque unknowable others through oil painting. Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.25035/jche.02.01.10
• Behrisch, T., & Bussard, N. (2024). Troubling transformative learning theory in the context of liquid modernity. XV Biennial International Transformative Learning Conference, Siena, Italy, 64–71. https://www.intertla.org/past-conferences-proceedings/
• Behrisch, T. (2023). Integrating artistic knowing with ancient STEM: Painting my encounter with a wild doe. SFU Educational Review, 15(1), 216–228. https://doi.org/10.21810/sfuer.v15i1.6131
• Behrisch, T. (2023). Learning through turkey vultures: Encountering death and more-than human opacity through smell. Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education., 35(2), 32–35.
• Behrisch, T. J. (2021). Painting deep time: Encountering landforms’ alterity and phusis through phenomenology and oil painting. Phenomenology & Practice, 16(1), 90-107.
• Behrisch, T. J. (2021). Shapeless listening to the more-than-human world: Coherence, complexity, mattering, indifference. Cultural Studies↔ Critical Methodologies, 21(6), 491-508.
• Scott, C., Behrisch, T., Bhattacharjee, M., Grass, S., & Bai, H. (2021). Re/turning to soil: becoming one-bodied with the Earth. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 16(3), 707-726.
• Behrisch, T. J. (2021). Cooking a pot of beef stew: Navigating through difficult times through slow philosophy. Qualitative Inquiry, 27(6), 667-676. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800420941057, first published online 2020.
• Behrisch, T., & Gemino, A. (2020). Sensation seekers who learn abroad: exploring the role of risk perception in co-op students’ international plans. International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, 21(1), 117–129.
• Behrisch, T. (2016). Cost and the craving for novelty: Exploring motivations and barriers for cooperative education and exchange students to go abroad. Asia-Pacific Journal of Co-operative Education, 17(3), 279-294.
• Behrisch, T., Hayter, R., & Barnes, T. (2003) “I don’t really like the mill; In fact, I hate the mill: Changing youth vocationalism under Fordism and post-Fordism in Powell River, British Columbia.” BC Studies, 135, 73-101.

Conference Presentations, Seminars, Art Exhibits, Podcasts, Interviews

• Behrisch, T. (2026). Leading without control: Using a posthumanist arts-based approach to distributed leadership in higher education [Conference presentation], 13^th International Conference on Social Science, Humanities and Education, Vienna, Austria.
• Behrisch, T. (2026). Habits to finish your graduate degree [Conference presentation], 13^th International Conference on Social Science, Humanities and Education, Vienna, Austria.
• Rumjahn, A., & Behrisch, T. (2025). Contemplating post-graduate grief: Temporality and ambivalence in education [Conference panel presentation], International Network of Philosophers of Education (INPE), online, SFU, Vancouver.
• Behrisch, T. (2025) How artistic practice can deepen your scholarship and liberate you from perfection [seminar and art tour], Education Hub, Faculty of Education, SFU, Burnaby.
• Behrisch, T. (2025) The Sublime Freedom of Not Knowing [oil painting exhibition], Education Hub, Faculty of Education, SFU, Burnaby.
• Behrisch, T., Fernandes, K., & Tucker, M. (2025). The pedagogy of sharing food: Engaging learners’ assumptions about food, eating and veganism as a way towards more respectful relations with animals [Conference presentation], WestCAST Conference 2025, Faculty of Education, SFU, Burnaby.
• Behrisch, T. (2024). Life Works [oil painting exhibition], Langara College, Vancouver.
• Behrisch, T., & Bussard, N. (2024). Troubling transformative learning theory in the context of liquid modernity, [Conference presentation], XV Biennial International Transformative Learning Conference, Siena, Italy.
• Behrisch, T. (2024). Reimagining mastery through scarcity and abundance: Oil painting with the more-than-human [Conference presentation], International Conference of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, Urbana.
• Bai, H., Banack, H., Behrisch, T., Scott, C., Beavington, L., Rumjahn, A., Haber, J., & Wang, R.-H. (2024). Practical wisdom as a way of knowing, worldview-consciousness shift, strange kinship, wild pedagogies, contemplative practice in deep time: A Canadian westcoast dialogue circle of concern addresses philosophy as lived experience, [Conference panel presentation], Canadian Philosophy of Education Society, Canadian Society for the Study of Education, Montreal.
• Bussard, N., & Behrisch, T. (2024). Willing to be transformed: Toward empathic authentic leadership, [Conference presentation], British Columbia Career Development Association, Vancouver.
• Forte, M., Barreiro, J., & Behrisch, T. (2024). Practicing relational feminism and posthumanism: What it means and how it shapes us (S. Shams, Interviewer) [IDEAS Podcast], Faculty of Education, SFU.
• Forte, M., Barreiro, J., & Behrisch, T. (2023). The journey of the Reading Thinking Doing Club (RTD), a forum for emerging scholars to think with post-humanist, new materialist, Indigenous and Black thinkers. (S. Shams, Interviewer) [IDEAS Podcast], Faculty of Education, SFU.
• Behrisch, T. (2022). Mastery as letting go of control: Oil painting with the more than human world, [Conference presentation], Geopoetics Symposium, Hollyhock Leadership Learning Centre, Cortes Island.
• Behrisch, T. (2022). Mastery as surrendering to more-than-human subjectivities, [oil painting exhibition], Geopoetics Symposium, Hollyhock Leadership Learning Centre, Cortes Island.
• Behrisch, T. (2022). Opening while failing: Oil painting as anti-masterful practice of research and unlearning, [Conference presentation], Learning Together unConference (LTuC), Faculty of Education, SFU, Burnaby.
• Behrisch, T., & Gustavson, K. (2022). Walking together as collaborative research, thinking, playing, [Conference presentation] Learning Together unConference 2022 (LTuC), Faculty of Education, SFU, Burnaby.
• Behrisch, T. (2021). Mentorship of the more-than-human world (K. Gustavson, Interviewer) [IDEAS Podcast], Faculty of Education, SFU.
• Behrisch, T. (2020). Sensation seekers who learn abroad: exploring how risk perception influences co-op students to go international and keeps most home [poster presentation postponed due to COVID], World Assoc of Co-operative Education (WACE) International Research Symposium, Limerick, Ireland.
• Behrisch, T. (2019). Sensation Seekers: Why risk pushes some students to learn abroad and keeps most home [Conference presentation], BC Association for Co-operative Education (ACE) Conference, Victoria.
• Behrisch, T., & Chicoine, H. (2019). Managing distributed teams well: Building trust & connectivity between colleagues working remotely from each other [Conference presentation], BC Association for Co-operative Education (ACE) Conference, Victoria.
• Behrisch, T. (2018). Cost and the craving for novelty: Exploring motivations and barriers for cooperative education and exchange students to go abroad [Poster presentation], World Association for Co-operative Education (WACE) International Research Symposium, Stuttgart.
• Behrisch, T. (2015). Cost and the craving for novelty: Exploring motivations and barriers for cooperative education and exchange students to go abroad [Keynote presentation], Canadian Association for Co-operative Education (CAFCE) AGM, Lethbridge.
• Behrisch, T. (2015). Why go international? What motivates Beedie Business students to complete international co-op and exchange? [Invited presentation], SFU Student Services, Burnaby.