Dr. Sharon Lauricella is an award-winning university instructor.  She is a two-time recipient of the UOIT Teaching Award, the CJPS Faculty Teaching Award, and has been nominated for provincial and national teaching recognition.  Sharon instructs courses including Nonviolent Communication, Professional Writing, Advanced Writing, Communication Ethics, and Public Speaking.

Sharon holds a doctoral degree from Cambridge University in England.  Her undergraduate work was completed in Boston, Massachusetts and Edinburgh, Scotland.  While a graduate student in England, Sharon rowed in the Corpus Christi College Women’s VIII and has since competed in the World Rowing Championships in Montreal.  She has climbed mountaintops all over the world, and has gone sliding down ice hills while holding a pickaxe in Scotland.  Sharon has been a practitioner of yoga for more than 10 years and has studied all over North America with the world's leading instructors.

It is important to Sharon to instill values of compassion and respect in her students at all levels.  Whether instructing university-level courses at UOIT or teaching yoga to school children, Sharon is passionate about teaching – while working with students of a wide range of ages and abilities, she is a teacher of students, not simply a teacher of a subject.   Her courses are lively, student-centred, and engage students of all learning styles.  During class time at UOIT, Sharon’s students may be found using technology via their laptops, lying on the gym floor, or taking photos of a variety of symbolic places on campus. 

Sharon is a forerunner of the new and progressive area of "food communication" – the study of advertising, films, and blogs which address the consumption (or non-consumption) of animal products, and how food is considered in the contexts of nutrition, medication, and culture.  Additional research in which Sharon is engaged includes a variety of studies of the student experience with using laptops in learning.  One of Sharon's most cited publications on laptops in higher education is available by clicking here.  Sharon is keenly interested in the interplay between spirituality and communication.  She has published articles on the spiritual component of Lil' Wayne's blog from prison (http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/k07v2366l683336v/) and the spiritual components in T.I. and Jay-Z's rap music (http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2012/2012-25.pdf).  

Sharon lives in Port Perry, Ontario with her two daughters and rescued dog.