Plenary Sessions

Opening Keynote Speaker

Renowned as one of Canada’s most respected national and international experts on world politics, Janice Gross Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and the founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario. She is an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was the Massey Lecturer in 2001 and an inaugural Trudeau Fellow. She was awarded the Molson Prize by the Canada Council for an outstanding contribution by a social scientist to public debate. She has been awarded Honorary Doctorate of Laws by five universities around the world. In 1996, Stein became a University Professor, the highest honour the university accords its faculty. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Kissinger Centre at School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

She chaired the Advisory Committee to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. She also Chairs the International Advisory Board of the Halifax International Security Forum.

Her research sits at the intersection of cognitive science, psychology, and international politics as she focuses on decision making and strategy. The author of eight books and more than a hundred articles, her most recent work is on the management of escalation and the psychological, institutional, and political factors that explain surprise. Her latest research focuses on the intersection of geopolitics and technology.

She is a regular contributor to The Bridge, Friday Focus, and the Paikin Podcast, as well as to CBC and the BBC.