Junior Fellows

Sanjida Amin

PhD Student, University of Toronto

Sanjida Amin is a PhD student at University of Toronto, where her research explores external intervention in intra-state conflicts, rebel organization and counterinsurgency. Her dissertation project examines the relationship between external intervention and organization of rebel groups. She is also the recipient of Ontario Graduate Scholarship in 2019.

Prior to her doctoral studies, Sanjida completed her MA in Political Science at University of Toronto and worked for the provincial government as a Policy Analyst. She has also volunteered at various organizations such as Global Ideas Institute at Munk School, International Studies Association Etc. Sanjida is also National Chapter Coordinator at WIIS Canada, where she maintains liaisons and facilitates collaboration with the local chapters across the country, industry professionals and government officials.

Vincent Boucher

PhD Student, University of Quebec

Vincent Boucher is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of Quebec at Montreal and a research fellow at the Center for United States Studies of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies (UQAM). His research focuses on U.S. foreign policy decision-making and he is currently writing a dissertation on the role of reputational arguments in decision to use military force (Title: Reputational Arguments in U.S. Foreign Policy Decision-Making: Its a Group Thing).

Mr. Boucher is the co-author of the upcoming book entitled National Security Entrepreneurs and the Making of American Foreign Policy (McGill-Queens University Press, 2020) with Dr. Charles-Philippe David and Dr. Karine Prémont. He also studies Canada-US relations and border security between both countries. His scholarly work has been published in Diplomacy Statecraft and Canadian Geographer. Mr. Boucher also published op-eds on U.S. politics and foreign policy in Le Devoir and La Presse. He was awarded a doctoral research grant by the Fonds de recherche société et culture du Québec (2018-20) and the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations Prize (2015). In 2017, Mr. Boucher was a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia.

Twitter: @vi_boucher

Kristen Csenkey

PhD Student, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Kristen Csenkey is a PhD Candidate at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo. Her research focuses on the management of emerging technologies, innovation, and cyber governance in Canada. Kristen is also a fellow with the Defence and Security Foresight (DSF) Group, the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network (NAADSN), and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI). She is a Women in International Security (WIIS) Emerging Thought Leader in Digital Security and was the 2020 Women in Defence and Security (WiDS)-CGAI Fellow.

Grant Curtis

PhD Student, Dalhousie University

Grant Curtis is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University. He holds graduate degrees from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University; the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and Dalhousie University/Kings College. He has extensive development experience in several post-conflict/fragile states in Africa and Asia through work with United Nations agencies, bilaterals, the Asian Development Bank, and international and local NGOs. His research interests include failed states, global migration, and pluralism; with publications addressing Cambodias post-UNTAC transition to democracy and development.

Ryan Dean

PhD Student, University of Calgary

Ryan Dean is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary. His recent edited volumes include (Re)Conceptualizing Arctic Security: Selected Articles from the Journal of Military and Security Studies (co-edited 2017) and Canadas Northern Strategy under the Harper Conservatives: Key Speeches and Documents on Sovereignty, Security, and Governance, 2006-15 (co-authored 2016). His dissertation examines how societal actors have influenced the formulation of Canadian Arctic security policy since 1985. Ryans research focuses on Canadas Arctic polices, including issues of sovereignty, defence and governance.

Before starting his PhD, Ryan worked as a policy analyst at the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation on their Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program in Toronto. Ryan received his MA in Political Studies from Queens University and his BA in Political Science from Carleton University.

Melissa Finn

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Waterloo

Melissa Finn, Ph.D is a researcher in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on citizenship, Arab youth, transnationalism, political participation, and anti-racism and youth empowerment frameworks through positive community engagement. She is the co-author of multiple academic articles on Arab youth and citizenship and has one single-author manuscript on al Qaeda and sacrificial agencies.

Kayla Grant

PhD Student, University of Waterloo

Kayla Grant is a PhD Candidate in Global Governance at the University of Waterloo. Located at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Kaylas research focus is on border security and immigration, specifically looking at local law enforcement, city agency, and Sanctuary Policies in the United States. Kayla is currently a member of the International Studies Association Canada Executive Board and a junior research affiliate with The Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society.

Jonathan Hui

PhD Student, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Jonathan Hui is a Ph.D student at the Balsillie School with research interests in the discipline of futures studies, political ecology, and the intersections between digital infrastructure and climate resilience. His interests lie in the context of East Asia and China, in particular, around regional ecologies, technology sharing, and political economy as means towards climate adaptation over the next century.

Jonathan did his undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto in Psychology and has a Masters in Political Science and Alternative Futures from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he studied the impact and usage of metaphors in framing international climate discourses. He previously worked in the tech industry on the data analytics and marketing side before deciding to pursue his degree in Futures Studies. Stemming from this have been foresight analyst positions with the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and the International Federation for the Red Cross, and more recently, as a foresight practitioner with the Toronto-based futures and health care consultancy Purple Compass.

Tanya Irwin-Bandula

PhD Student, University of Toronto

Tanya is a PhD student at the University of Toronto. Her research investigates insurgent group financing and governance, with a particular emphasis on the role of tax in rebel group behaviors and outcomes. Her research typically focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa. She has worked as a consultant and researcher on matters of governance and taxation for the World Bank, Danish Refugee Council, and International Centre for Tax and Development. Tanya is also the Executive Vice-President of the Toronto Chapter of Women in International Security-Canada.

Adam MacDonald

PhD Student, Dalhousie University

Adam P. MacDonald is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science and the Deputy-Director of the Centre for the Study of Security and Development (CSSD) at Dalhousie University. He is a former Naval Warfare Officer in the Canadian Armed Forces with experience in deployed operations, command headquarters and force support functions.

His research interests include: great power relations; international and regional order formation, evolution, and contestation; Canadian defence and foreign policy: naval acquisition and deployments; military operations, specifically in East Asia and the Arctic; and continental defence. He is a Killam Scholar and holds a SSHRC - Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2019-22). Outside his academic studies, he is a community member on the Nova Scotia Health Authoritys Research Ethics Board. He regularly tweets at @adampmac.

Emmanuelle Rousseau

PhD Student, Université de Montréal

Emmanuelle Rousseau is a PhD student in Political Science at the Université de Montréal. She works on contestation practices and multilateral security organizations. Her doctoral research focuses on the case of Russian everyday contestation at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

She holds an MA in International Relations Governance, a BA in Russian studies and a Bachelor of Laws. She previously was a Researcher-in-Residence at the OSCE and interned at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg and the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow. She speaks French, English, Russian and German.

Nico Saunders

PhD Student, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Nico Saunders is a PhD in Global Governance student at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, through the University of Waterloo. Her interests are centered around social perspective on national security, and how that translates, or influences community conflict prevention strategies.

Previously, Nico has worked as a Strategy Specialist in the Ontario governments Prevention Office, and as a research assistant at Defence Research and Development Canada. Nico is a junior affiliate at the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (TSAS).

Sarah Sharma

PhD Student, Queens University

Sarah Sharma is a Vanier Scholar in International Relations in the Department of Political Studies at Queens University. She has recently completed fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation, which examines how urban flooding is being governed through a global policy paradigm, climate resilience, to understand the unique position cities are in when adapting to climate change. Her two case studies are Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Dhaka, Bangladesh, two diverse locales that both grapple with heightened urban flooding from intensifying rainstorms. In undertaking field research, Sarah was a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) at the Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and a Visiting PhD Scholar at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Previously, she was at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in New York City working as an Economic Affairs Consultant. Sarah received her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Global Development Studies from Queens University and her Masters in International Political Economy from the University of Manchester. Sarah is interested in global governance and development, political ecology, the international financial system, urban politics and how these themes interact with gender and racial equality. Her project is supervised by Dr. Susanne Soederberg (Global Development Studies).

Bukola Solomon

PhD Student, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Bukola Solomon is a Ph.D. student in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs through the University of Waterloo. She researches gender mainstreaming in security studies, particularly terrorism and counterterrorism studies. She is currently writing her dissertation on the securitization of motherhood in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) policies and practices.

Bukola completed her Masters degree in Diplomacy and Military Studies at Hawaii Pacific University. Her thesis focused on the historical account of womens activism during the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa. Bukky has experience in international relations through her work at Global Peace Foundation, Washington, D.C., where she focused on the role of youth in peacebuilding. Also, she is a womens rights activist. She has raised her voice at globally significant institutions such as the UN General Assembly, World Bank, and Brookings Institution through A Girl Project, an NGO she founded three years ago.

Eric Tanguay

PhD Student, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Eric Tanguay holds a Masters in History from Wilfrid Laurier University, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in the Global Governance Ph.D program at the Balsillie School of International Affairs where he specializes in conflict and security. His primary research interests include post-conflict peace processes, the role of traditional and religious institutions in African security governance, and the protection of civilians in peacekeeping operations. His dissertation investigates the potential of Peace Infrastructures, such as Ghanas National Peace Council, to serve as inclusive and locally owned alternatives to conventional top-down approaches to building peace.

Mohsin Amin

Mohsin is a policy analyst and researcher. He worked for over ten years in the infrastructure sector of Afghanistan. He advised the Inter-ministerial Commission for Energy and international development partners like the Asian Development Bank, USAID, and the World Bank on energy policy formulation and institutional restructuring. His research focuses on aid effectiveness in post-conflict regions, energy security of developing countries, and local governance in Central and South Asia.
He was awarded the Fulbright scholarship and obtained his Masters degree in Public Policy at Oregon State University. He did his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Kabul Polytechnic University. He published more than ten academic papers, policy reports, and op-eds. His articles on Afghanistans economy and the energy sector were published by the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and Aljazeera.

Linkedin: Mohsin Amin

Twitter: @MohsinAmin