Jamshed Merchant started his career as a Faculty Lecturer/Research Associate in the Department of Geography at McGill University. Following this, Jamshed joined the Alberta Department of Environment as a soil scientist providing advice to landowners, energy industry staff and other government officials on land reclamation principles and practices across the province.

Whilst still in Alberta, Jamshed joined the federal public service as a Soil Conservationist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). In this capacity he worked with farmers, local decision makers, farm organizations, academia and provincial officials across the Prairie Provinces to promote and implement environmentally sustainable agricultural practices. Jamshed also worked as Director of Communications for a branch of AAFC that was headquartered in Regina, SK.

Jamshed moved to Ottawa and assumed the role of Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister of AAFC and then as AAFC’s Director General of Strategic Business Planning. Jamshed left AAFC to become the Director General of Government on Line and e-Services in the department of Canadian Heritage.

Following this, Jamshed joined the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada. Initially as the Executive Director for Transport, Infrastructure and the Environment and then as Assistant Secretary responsible for Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, the Climate Change Review, and the Blue Ribbon Panel on Grants and Contributions.

Jamshed returned to AAFC as Assistant Deputy Minister, Agri-Environment Services Branch. Following this, Jamshed assumed his last position in the federal public service, before retiring, as Consul General for Canada in the US Upper Mid-West, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Jamshed has a BSc in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia, UK and an MSc in Pedology and Soil Survey from the University of Reading, UK.

PolicyOptions

Canadian Global Affairs Institute

Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, Trinity College, University of Toronto

Eugene Lang is an Assistant Professor in the School of Policy Studies, where he teaches the core courses MPA 802 (Applied Policy Analysis) and MPA 810 (Introduction to Public Administration), as well as the elective course MPA 876 (Instruments and Institutions of Public Finance). 

For several years Eugene coached the School of Policy Studies team to the National Public Administration Case Competition, including to a gold medal in 2024. In 2025 he was appointed National Co-Chair of the Case Competition.

Eugene is dedicated to enriching the student experience and supporting students in and outside of the classroom.  In 2023 he was named a Queen’s University Champion for Mental Health by the Campus Wellness Project.  In 2025 he was awarded the John G. Freeman Award For Faculty Excellence from The Society of Graduate and Professional Students. 

Eugene began his career in the federal government and worked in both the public service and in Cabinet Minister’s offices, serving as Policy Advisor to the Solicitor General of Canada; Senior Policy Advisor (Economic) to the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada; Senior Economist, Finance Canada; Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State (Finance); Chief of Staff to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Chief of Staff to the Minister of National Defence. 

He has also worked for twenty years in the private sector, first at Bell Canada Enterprises and subsequently as a consultant advising domestic and multinational companies and business associations on public policy and advocacy.

A Senior Fellow at the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, Trinity College, University of Toronto; Fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute;  and Fellow of the Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s University, Eugene was previously Visiting Fellow at the Munk School of International Studies, University of Toronto, and BMO Visiting Fellow, Glendon School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), Glendon College, York University.  At Glendon College, he taught in the Master of Public and International Affairs program and served as Interim Co-Director of the School.

Eugene is the co-author of two books, including The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, a national best-seller which won the Writer’s Trust Cohen Award for political writing, was short-listed for the Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian public policy, was named one of the Globe and Mail’s top one hundred books of the year, and was the basis for a documentary film produced by Global Television. 

His writings have appeared in various edited books as well as Policy Options, Policy Network, International Politics and Society, International Journal, Policy Perspectives (Canadian Global Affairs Institute), The Global Exchange, Walrus and The Conversation.  He has also published hundreds of columns in all of Canada’s major newspapers and contributes op eds regularly to The Globe and Mail. 

Eugene has spoken at various universities and think tanks in Canada and abroad and has testified as an expert witness to federal government commissions and inquiries.  He has appeared as a commentator on CBC radio and television, CTV, Global Television/Radio, BNN-Bloomberg, numerous podcasts and is quoted regularly in print media.

Educated at the University of Western Ontario (B.A., M.A., political science), Queen’s University (M.P.A.) and the London School of Economics (M.Sc. International Political Economy), where he studied as a Chevening Scholar, Eugene lives in Ottawa with his wife and children.

Professor Wenjue L. Knutsen is one of Canada’s leading academics who studies nonprofit organizations and public policy. She is jointly appointed in three departments at Queen’s: the Smith School of Business, the Faculty of Health Sciences – School of Nursing, and the School of Policy Studies. She holds a doctorate (Ph.D.) in public administration from one of the leading public administration programs in the United States, the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. She also holds a Masters in Public Administration (M.P.A.) from Wayne State University.

Professor Knutsen’s research spans issues of management, health care, public policy, and public administration, all in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. She has studied issues about government-nonprofit collaboration, as well as the effectiveness of applying business managerial strategies in the nonprofit sector. She is currently studying how to lead social change through business means and how to address the lack of financial independence of the social sector through social innovations. Her research implicates issues with social enterprises, social finance, social enterprise ethics, and social enterprise legal structures.  

Professor Knutsen is a co-editor of the country’s leading nonprofit management textbook: Management of Nonprofit and Charitable Organizations in Canada (5th edition). Her work has appeared in top academic journals such as Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, as well as in books and journals published around the world. She is also currently an editorial board member for Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. She has presented her academic work throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, Israel and China.

She was awarded the Felice Davidson Perlmutter Award in 2016 for her research contributions by the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, America’s leading academic organization for nonprofit scholars.

Professor Knutsen is frequently invited by media, government, and industry to provide her perspectives about nonprofit organizations, whether in the news or at an event or conference.

CV [229 kb]

Bahman Kashi is a Term Adjunct Assistant Professor at Queen’s University and the founder and an economist with Limestone Analytics. Before Limestone, he worked for eight years as a consultant in the areas of economic impact assessment, public investment management, economic analysis of development projects, and evaluation of social programs.

Dr. Kashi has worked on capacity building and technical advisory projects in Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Haiti, Malaysia, Canada, United States, Cyprus, Ghana, Lesotho, Indonesia, and Switzerland. His research interests include economics of energy, transport, and telecommunication markets; private sector engagement and innovative finance; integration of environmental and social impacts into cost-benefit analysis, monitoring and evaluation; and institutional aspects of impact analysis.

Dr. Kashi has held numerous professional positions under multi-year technical contracts, including the Research Director for USAID’s Learning, Evaluation, and Analysis Project (LEAP) III (2018 - 2022) and a Senior Advisor to the Economic Analysis division of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) (2018 - 2021).

Morah Fenning is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University. She first joined the School as the Ontario Public Service Amethyst Fellow for 2015 and 2016. She was previously Assistant Deputy Minister of the Tourism Planning and Operations Division, responsible for developing the Ministry's tourism agencies and attractions as catalysts for regional economic development and as internationally-recognized travel destinations. She oversaw the provincial relationship with its tourism agencies and attractions, ensuring good governance and accountability as well as investments in capital infrastructure.

Morah was also with Ontario – Open for Business, where she designed and delivered a best-in-class government modernization agenda to support the adoption of leading practices in regulatory reform and service improvements across all ministries. She also led a transformational policy reform of the child welfare system as the Executive Director of the Child Welfare Secretariat. As Director of the Drive Clean Office, Morah oversaw the Province’s outsourced vehicle emissions testing program, while leading the ministry’s review of its inspection, investigation and enforcement functions. She also led the Ministry of Transportation’s Licensing and Control Branch, and prior to that, was the project manager for the Ontario Advisory Group on Safe Driving. Morah started her career in correctional services, working in the criminal justice system for more than a decade.

Morah has an Honours B.A. from the University of Waterloo, a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from York University and has completed the Executive Program at the Queen’s University School of Business. In 2018, she was selected to participate in Cultural Intelligence learning and experiential study tours in England and Malaysia with senior leaders from across the commonwealth. She retired in 2019 and enjoys teaching the next generation of public servants.

Don Drummond is the Stauffer-Dunning Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University. In 2011-12, he served as Chair for the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services. Its final report, released in February 2012, contained nearly four hundred recommendations to provide Ontarians with excellent and affordable public services. 

Mr. Drummond previously held a series of progressively more senior positions in the areas of economic analysis and forecasting, fiscal policy and tax policy during almost 23 years with Finance Canada. His last three positions were respectively Assistant Deputy Minister of Fiscal Policy and Economic Analysis, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Tax Policy & Legislation and most recently, Associate Deputy Minister. In the latter position he was responsible for economic analysis, fiscal policy, tax policy, social policy and federal-provincial relations and coordinated the planning of the annual federal budgets.

He subsequently was Senior Vice President and Chief Economist for the TD Bank (2000-2010), where he took the lead with TD Economics’ work in analyzing and forecasting economic performance in Canada and abroad.  For Canada, this work was conducted at the city, provincial, industrial and national levels. TD Economics also analyzes the key policies which influence economic performance, including monetary and fiscal policies. He is a graduate of the University of Victoria and holds an M.A. (Economics) from Queen’s University.  He has honorary doctorates from Queen’s and the University of Victoria and is a member of the Order of Ontario. 

Mr. Drummond is currently Chair, Canadian Centre for the Study of Living Standards; Fellow-in-Residence, C.D. Howe Institute and; member of the Expert Advisory Group to the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices. 

Christopher Cotton is a Professor of Economics at Queen's University where he holds the Jarislowsky-Deutsch Chair in Economic & Financial Policy. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of Economics, and is a faculty member for the CPIA professional program and the MPA and PMPA programs within the Queen's School of Policy Studies, He is also a cross-appointed member of the Translational Medicine Graduate Faculty in the Queen's School of Medicine, where he helps supervise students working at the intersection of health and economics.

Prof. Cotton focuses on applying rigorous research methods from economics to gain insights into pressing public policy questions. He has also worked extensively on the evaluation of education and health policies and international development projects, and is a leading international expert on lobbying, political influence and campaign finance reform, as well as the funding of social sector projects and programs. His research publishes in top scientific journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, and Management Science, and has included seminal papers on several topics. 

Much of Prof. Cotton's research and service encourages the incorporation of better evidence into policy decisions. He serves as the Director of the John Deutsch Institute for the Study of Economic Policy, a research institute that focuses on supporting and promoting policy-relevant research at Queen's. He is also the Director of Research at Limestone Analytics, and one of the lead developers behind the new CPIA program at Queen's, which teaches professionals at NGOs, governments, and international development agencies how to effectively incorporate evidence and evaluation into the design and financing of their projects. Prof. Cotton regularly provides advice to governments and NGOs about the potential impact of different policies and the best methods for evaluating projects. He has been involved with the design and evaluation of several major international development projects involving nutrition and education, and is currently overseeing the evaluation of a large Girls Education Challenge project in Zimbabwe funded by the Department for International Development UK. He holds a SSHRC grant to study how donors choose between projects and causes.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Cotton began to focus much of his research and policy efforts to better understand the economic and social costs of the pandemic. He was appointed to the Royal Society of Canada COVID-19 working group on Economic Recovery and Global Canada's COVID Strategic Choices Group. He is also the co-PI on a major NSERC grant and the economic modeling lead on a major Canada Digital Technology Supercluster grant, both of which involve bringing together economic and epidemiological models to build capacity for the evaluation of future outbreaks and pandemics. 

Prof. Cotton is also an enthusiastic teacher and adviser. He advises many Ph.D. and M.A. students, and won the department's award for undergraduate teaching.

Dr. Kathy L. Brock is a Professor, School of Policy Studies and cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University, Chair of the National Accreditation Board for Programs in Public Administration, former President of the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration, and former National Research Chair for the Institute of Programs in Public Administration. She has published books, academic articles and reports on the non-profit sector, Canadian and comparative politics and government, federalism and constitutional matters, Indigenous governance and issues and the judiciary and the executive. She has been active in public affairs as a nonpartisan advisor to federal, provincial and territorial governments, political parties, an Indigenous organization and leaders, and non-profit organizations. A dedicated professor, she received the 2008 Pierre De Celles IPAC Award for Teaching Excellence in Public Administration (national award) and the 2009 Frank Knox Award (Queen’s University) for Teaching Excellence and was a finalist for the 2020 Queen’s Alumni Award for Teaching Excellence.

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