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Sanjida Amin

Sanjida Amin

Sanjida Amin

CDSN Post-Doctoral Fellow

Queen’s University

sanjida.amin@queensu.ca

Robert Sutherland Hall, Rm 415

About

Sanjida Amin is the CDSN Postdoctoral Fellow (2025–2026) at the Centre for International and Defence Policy (CIDP) at Queen’s University. She is currently completing her PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto, where her research focuses on foreign sponsorship of insurgent groups, insurgent-state relations, and the international dimensions of civil war.

Her book project examines how external support from foreign states shapes internal conflict dynamics, particularly by driving insurgent fragmentation during peace negotiations. Her broader research interests include international peacebuilding, alliance politics, and Canadian foreign and defense policy. Her current postdoctoral project investigates how U.S.-Canada security relations influence Canada’s evolving engagement with UN peacekeeping, situating this within the broader context of multilateralism and shifting global security priorities.

Sanjida’s research has been supported by Fulbright Canada, the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC), and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. She aims to contribute to more effective peacebuilding and mediation strategies in protracted conflicts, as well as to informed debates on Canadian international security policy.

Current Interests

  • International Security
  • Conflict and Conflict Resolution
  • Foreign Policy

Recent Publications

  • Amin, Sanjida, and Alexander Pelletier. “Taking Armed Group Fragmentation Seriously in Multilateral Interventions.” African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review (accepted)

Online

Michael P. A. Murphy

Photo of Michael P. A. Murphy

Michael Murphy

Director

Centre for International & Defence Policy

Queen's University

michael.murphy@queensu.ca

Robert Sutherland Hall, Rm 409

About

Michael P. A. Murphy is the director of the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University and president of the Canadian region of the International Studies Association. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa, where his dissertation won the 2022 Joseph De Koninck Thesis Prize for making an outstanding contribution to interdisciplinary knowledge.

He is a former Digital Policy Hub fellow at Centre for International Governance Innovation. At Queen’s, Michael has held appointments as the Buchanan Postdoctoral Fellow in Canadian Democracy, a Mathews Fellow in Public Policy, and a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow.

He is the author of Quantum Social Theory for Critical International Relations Theorists (Palgrave, 2021) and Weak Utopianism in Education (Routledge, 2024), more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and numerous book reviews and chapters, receiving more than 2,000 citations. Michael is an international award-winning educator with a range of teaching experience in international relations, Canadian politics, political theory and public administration.

Research Interests

  • Security implications of emerging technology
  • Quantum information science and technology (QIST)
  • International relations theory

Recent Publications

  • Murphy, Michael P.A., Paul Samson, and Tracey Forrest. 2025. From Peace Dividend to Defence Dividend: Quantum, Dual-Use Technology, and NATO Spending Targets. Waterloo: Centre for International Governance Innovation. https://www.cigionline.org/publications/from-peace-dividend-to-defence-dividend-dual-use-quantum-and-nato-targets/
  • Murphy, Michael PA and Joanne Archibald. 2025. “Sensing Common Ground? A Call for Collaboration Between the DND/CAF Quantum S&T Strategy and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.” International Journal. 80(2): 304-311. https://doi.org/10.1177/00207020251337744
  • Murphy, Michael PA, and Claire Parsons. 2024. “Tracking Quantum S&T from Strategy to Implementation Plan: What We Learned About the Canadian Armed Forces’ Quantum Posture.” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal. 30(3): 264-279.  https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2024.2387209
  • Murphy, Michael PA. 2024. “Rediscovering the “Meaning of Science”? Hans Morgenthau’s Science: Servant or Master and the Ethics Debate in Quantum IR.” International Relations OnlineFirst: 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178241265635
  • Murphy, Michael PA. 2022. "Evaluating Simultaneous Group Activities Through Self-and Peer-Assessment: Addressing the" Evaluation Challenge" in Active Learning." Journal of Political Science Education 18(4): 511-522. https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2099410

Online

 

Sydney Levitt

Sydney Levitt

Sydney Levitt

Undergraduate Researcher

Politics, Philosophy, and Economics

About

Sydney is an undergraduate student studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) at Queen’s University. Her research focuses on the African Union’s implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, with interests in sexual violence in conflict, substantive representation, and the political rights of women across Africa. In parallel with her current work at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, she is especially interested in political prisoners and wrongful incarceration. Sydney is also actively involved in the Queen’s International Affairs Association and Model United Nations, and aspires to apply the knowledge gained through her research at the CIDP to a future career in law.

Research Interests

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Recent Publications

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Online

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Exercise Trillium Cura: Understanding and preparing for a complicated health system issue: A long-lasting mass casualty event caused by large-scale combat operations or natural disasters

Date

Friday May 9, 2025
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Location

Online Zoom Webinar

Trillium Cura

Drs Forestier and Pedlar will present the findings of Exercise Trillium Cura (ETC).  In 2024, ETC was a tabletop simulation of how the health system in Ontario, along with a wide range of partners, would cope with the inflow of casualties from a prolonged conventional war while maintaining care for civilians. The result of six months of planning and development by a civilian-military team, Trillium Cura brought together 45 in-person participants and 27 observers from across the country using wargame techniques to simulate the flow of a wide-range of wounded into Ontario while maintaining current clinical volumes. 

After two days, ETC demonstrated a wide range of problems along with some successes. During the exercise, participants underscored that lessons learned from COVID-19 were not enough to respond to the unique challenges presented by a sustained mass casualty event. Despite this, key problems or challenges were predictable: the importance civilian military health system collaboration, clear leadership, and the need for critical and human resources. Perhaps most importantly, the exercise surfaced several activities we could rapidly undertake now to be better prepared.

Our public health and health systems will continue to face crises and must withstand the broad challenges we face, whether external like the threat in ETC or internal like wildfires or floods that breach city limits. 

 

View the Powerpoint Presentation

 

Bios:

Brigadier General (BGen) Forestier currently serves as Director General Clinical Services in the Canadian Armed Forces. Prior to this position, she was Director Health Services Strategic Concepts Canadian Forces Health Services. BGen Forestier enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces in 2003 as a direct entry medical officer after working as a rural family physician in southern Alberta. She was first posted to 1 Field Ambulance and in 2006 to the Canadian Special Operations Regiment as a Medical Officer.

She has been employed in a number of medical advisory and medical staff positions including Command Surgeon for the Canadian Special Operations Command, senior Staff Officer for Medical Policy and Standards, Regional Surgeon for Joint Task Force Atlantic in Halifax, and Canadian Joint Operations Command Surgeon.

She served as the Director of Mental Health (2017-2019), as the Director of Health Services Operations (2020- 2022), and then as Director Health Services Strategic Concepts. Her deployment experience includes a tour in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2005/06 as part of the Provincial Reconstruction Team during Op ARCHER, and in March 2015 she served as the Task Force Commander for Op SIRONA in Sierra Leone, the Canadian Armed Forces contribution to the fight against the Ebola Virus in West Africa.

BGen Forestier completed a Family Medicine Residency at the University of Calgary in 1998, earned the Certificate of Special Competence Emergency Medicine (CCFP (EM)), and is a graduate of the Canadian Forces College National Security Program (2020).

 

Dr. David Pedlar is a Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queens University and Senior Scientist at the University of Ottawa, Institute for Mental Health Research at the Royal Hospital. He is a distinguished researcher and thought leader with an impressive track record advancing veteran, military and family health research and policy in Canada and internationally. He is a two-time Fulbright Canada recipient, as scholar and research chair. He has played a pivotal role in shaping veteran health research in Canada, securing major funding, and leading multiple international collaborations.

Since retiring as the Scientific Director of the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Heath Research (2017-2024), he continues to serve as their Strategic Research Advisor.  He has advised governments and institutions worldwide, including serving as the Strategic Research Advisor to scientific advisory boards and international health systems working groups. His leadership in veteran mental health research extends globally, with key roles in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and beyond.

 

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