John-Tyler Binfet Ph.D.

John-Tyler Binfet, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus. Trained as an educational psychologist, Dr. Binfet has two research strands: 1) understanding how students conceptualize and enact kindness in schools; and 2) the effects of canine-assisted interventions on student well-being, particularly around stress reduction.

Binfet is the lead author of the School Kindness Scale, a measure used to assess students’ perceptions of school kindness and much of his research has focused on understanding how students enact kindness within the school context. His research on kindness has been published in Psychology in the Schools, the International Journal of Emotional Education, and the Canadian Journal of School Psychology.

When not researching kindness in schools, Binfet is typically surrounded by dogs as he is the founder and director of UBC’s Building Academic Retention through K9s (B.A.R.K.) program, a large on-campus stress-reduction program that sees 60+ certified therapy dogs provide social and emotional support to undergraduate students. Established in 2012, the B.A.R.K. program is a robust research hub that explores interactions between students and community members and therapy dogs. Research out of the B.A.R.K. lab has been published in the Journal of Mental Health, Anthrozoos, and the Journal of Research in Childhood Education, among elsewhere. In collaboration with Elizabeth Hartwig from Texas State University, Binfet is the co-author of Canine-Assisted Interventions: A Comprehensive Guide to Credentialing Therapy Dog Teams (Routledge, 2020). More information on Binfet and his research can be found on his UBC faculty webpage. When not working, you’ll find Binfet active in volunteer dog rescue work.