About

Catarina Caria is a foreign affairs analyst, seasoned public speaker and invited lecturer, with a strong emphasis on European and Transatlantic Affairs, Security & Defence. She's the host of #UniãoDeFacto, a @Sábado Podcast and a regular analyst/columnist on mainstream media. She is also an adviser to the Portuguese government and a former Fulbright Scholar. Prior to joining the non-governmental sector, working as the programme manager for Europe & MENA at the Institute for Economics & Peace - the world’s leading think tank on peace metrics - Catarina worked with the United States Department of State and UK FCDO in public affairs, trade & investment, strategic communications and outreach - dealing with a plethora of issues ranging from regulatory and trade compliance, cybersecurity & defense, startups & SMEs, education, D&I and sustainability. Catarina is on the advisory board of multiple national and international organisations and she's the youngest appointed member of the strategic council of CIP - the largest confederation of businesses in Portugal - shaping foreign direct investment attractiveness and competitiveness in the country. In 2023 she was nominated as a Young Leader to join an official Portuguese delegation to New Delhi 🇮🇳 at the invitation of the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Catarina holds a Master’s Degree in Governance, Leadership and Democracy Studies and a Bachelor’s in Political Science and International Affairs.

Research Interests

• Security and Defence
• Transatlantic and European Affairs
• Women, Peace and Security

Recent Publications

Online

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catarina-caria-48156b150/

About

Anessa L. Kimball (prof/they/iel) is a professor of political science in international relations at Université Laval, Québec, Canada, where they have been on faculty for nearly two decades. Since 2019, Kimball has directed the Canadian Defence and Security Network, a federally funded partnership research network. Their research combines rational institutional design and collective action approaches with different statistical methods and machine-coded (interview and international agreement) content analysis to examine how states resolve strategic problems (distribution, commitment, uncertainty) through the design of informal defence and security arrangements alongside NATO and issues of defence burden sharing, procurement, and international cooperation. Kimball’s research has been published in academic journals as well as on both university and scholarly press. Professor Kimball has served as the co-organiser and co-host of the Annual Rencontre Université-Défense at Université Laval since 2018 and has organised multiple academic conferences and workshops over the years. Kimball’s 2023 book on NATO burden sharing offered the first solo-authored book-length contribution by a non-male identifying scholar statistically examining the subject and their current research explores international security organisations as public policy agents.

Research Interests

• Bargaining & security/defence cooperation
• Defence economics and public policy
• International security and foreign affairs

Recent Publications

• A. Kimball & C. Picard. 2025. “Trudeau’s minority governments performance on national defence electoral promises: an international politics perspective,” eds. Birch, L. et al. Assessing Justin Trudeau’s minority governments (2019-2025): Navigating through 697 promises in times of crisis, Presses UL.

• A. Kimball & P. Ouellette. 2025. “An international politics perspective on Trudeau’s foreign policy and international trade promises,” Eds. Birch, L. et al. Assessing Justin Trudeau’s minority governments (2019-2025): Navigating through 697 promises in times of crisis, Presses ULaval.

• Kimball, A. 2024. “Reconceptualising burdens – NATO Centres of Excellence: Club goods, informal institutions, and partner contributions,” Defence Studies, 24(4): 559-600. Open access.

• Kimball, A. 2023. “Current and Future Challenges to Canada-US Defense Cooperation – North America, the Transatlantic, and beyond,” Politique américaine, special issue, « Le Canada face aux États-Unis: Interdépendance asymétrique - Politiques économiques - Géopolitique et sécurité » 41(2): 62-81.

• Kimball, A. 2023. Beyond 2% - NATO partners, institutions & burden management: Concepts, risks & models, 247 pages, Palgrave-Macmillan, Series: Canada & International Affairs, ISBN: 9783031221576.

Online

• Website: https://www.fss.ulaval.ca/notre-faculte/repertoire-du-personnel/anessa-kimball
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/profkimball.bsky.social
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anessa-l-kimball-ph-d-854a674/

About

Tod retired from the Canadian Armed Forces after serving thirty-seven years as an infantry officer with Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. His last position was commandant of the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, Ontario. He served overseas on multiple operational deployments in the former-Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and the Republic of South Korea. 

He is now a PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr Allan English. His dissertation will seek to examine the interactions between leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Minister’s Monitoring Committee on Change as, together, they sought to implement the myriad recommendations resultant from the Somalia Affair. This will have implications on our understanding of the Canadian civil-military relationship, cultural transformation in large organizations, and change management – particularly as demonstrated by directed change by political authorities.

Research Interests

• Canadian Military History
• Civil-Military Relations
• Military Cultural Transformation

Recent Publications

• Crisis to Catalyst: The Strategic Effects of the Somali Affair on the Canadian Armed Forces, Centre for International and Defence Policy Occasional Paper Series 70 (Kingston, ON: CIDP), December 2024. https://www.queensu.ca/cidp/sites/cidpwww/files/uploaded_files/OP%2070%…
• From the Boers to the Taliban: How Canadian Attitudes Towards War Have Changed, JADEX Papers 3, (Ottawa, ON: National Defence), 2011. JADEX Papers 3 (publications.gc.ca)
• “Creating Combat Leaders in the Canadian Corps: The Experiences of Lieutenant-Colonel Agar Adamson” in Andrew Godfroy Editor, Great War Commands: Historical Perspective on Canadian Army Leadership, 1914-1918, (Kingston ON: Canadian Defence Academy Press) 2010. pp 201-238. D2-259-2-2010-eng.pdf (publications.gc.ca)
• “Leading from the Front: Lieutenant-Colonel Cameron “Cammie” Ware” in Colonel Bernd Horn Editor, Intrepid Warriors: Perspectives on Canadian Military Leaders, Toronto, ON: The Dundurn Group, 2007, pp. 199-221. D2-202 2007E (publications.gc.ca)

Online

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todstrickland/

About

Tehya Blake (she/her/elle) is a bilingual PhD student in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University. She is supervised by Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky and is working on research related to women, peace and security (WPS) and conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). She is affiliated with the Network for Strategic Analysis (NSA/RAS), Women in International Security – Canada (WIIS-C), and Women in Defence and Security (WiDS).

Prior to beginning her doctoral degree, Tehya was a policy analyst with the Department of National Defence in Ottawa. She completed her M.A. at Queen’s University (2024) where she received the G.G. Baron Van der Feltz Award for the best master’s research paper in International Relations, and her B.A. (Hons) at St. Francis Xavier University (2023) where she received the Dr. John B. Stewart for best overall performance in Political Science.

Research Interests:

• Women, Peace and Security (WPS)
• International Relations
• NATO

Recent Publications

Online

About

EJ Kelvin is a second-year Concurrent Education student at Queen’s University pursuing a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Political Studies with a History minor, alongside a Bachelor of Education in the Intermediate/Senior stream. Her research interests center on international relations, defence policy, and the intersection of governance, equity, and education.

Beyond the classroom, EJ serves as the Undergraduate Student Trustee on the Queen’s University Board of Trustees, representing the voice of undergraduate students in university governance and policy discussions. Previously, she was Chief Operating Officer of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, managing operations for a organization representing over two million students, and an Intern in the Office of the Rector, where she advanced projects focused on accessibility, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

EJ is excited to join the Centre for International and Defence Policy, where she looks forward to learning from leading researchers and gaining deeper insight into Canada’s role in global security and international affairs.

Research Interests

Recent Publications

Online

About

Rubiat Saimum is a PhD student in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University. Prior to this, he served as a lecturer in the Department of Maritime Security and Strategic Studies at Bangladesh Maritime University. He is currently a South Asian Future Fellow at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research (CSDR) and a former Junior Research Fellow at the NATO Association of Canada.

Current Interests

• International Security
• Indo-Pacific Geopolitics
• South Asian Affairs

Recent Publications

• Saimum, R. (2025). From Hardware to Heartware: China's Evolving Military Relations with Bangladesh. In Xavier, C. & Jacob, J. T. (Eds). How China Engages South Asia: In the Open and Behind the Scenes (pp. 107-117). Centre for Social and Economic Progress. Retrieved from https://csep.org/IpNMF81
• Shahid, R. & Saimum, R. (2023) ‘Navigating the troubled waters: ‘maritimization' of Bangladesh’s foreign policy’, Australian Journal of Maritime & Ocean Affairs, https://doi.org/10.1080/18366503.2023.2228615
• Saimum, R. (2020). ‘The Prospect of Belt and Road Initiative in the Context of Bangladesh’. China Report, 56(4), 464-483, Sage Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1177/0009445520930396
• Saimum, R. (2020). ‘ASEAN’s Rohingya Dilemma: Limits of Regional Co-operation’. In Charting a Sustainable Future of ASEAN in Business and Social Sciences (pp. 339-348). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3859-9_29

Online

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubiat-saimum-39254a151/