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Executive Committee

The Executive Committee is comprised of the President, President Elect, Past President, Treasurer, Secretary, Managing Editor of the Canadian Review of Sociology journal, the Communications Officer (also referred to as ‘Officers’), and the chairs of the following subcommittees; Anti-Islamophobia, Black Caucus, Decolonization, Equity Issues, Francophone Affairs, Policy, Ethics, and Professional Concerns, Research Advisory, and Student Concerns (also referred to as ‘Directors’).

Officers are elected by the membership for their specific position and serve a three-year term. Terms may be extended for one year for all but the President’s position with Executive Committee approval. Directors are chosen by their particular subcommittee and may sit on the Executive Committee from one to three years.

2023-2024 Executive Committee

President Dr. Temitope Oriola	President-Elect Dr. Liam Swiss	Past-President Dr. Irene Shankar	Treasurer Dr. Julia Woodhall-Melnik
Secretary Dr. Zohreh BayatRizi	Communications Officer Dr. Naomi Lightman	Journal Managing Editor Dr. Dominique Clément	Chair-Anti-Islamophobia Subcommittee Dr. Nadiya Ali
Chair-Black Caucus Dr. Johanne Jean-Pierre	Co-chair-Decolonization Subcommittee Dr. Jeff Denis	Co-chair-Decolonization Subcommittee Dr. Yvonne Sherwood	Chair-Equity Issues Subcommittee Dr. Jessica Braimoh
Chair-Francophone Affairs Subcommittee Dr. Guillaume Durou	Chair-Policy, Ethics and Professional Concerns Subcommittee Dr. Augustine SJ Park	Chair-Research Advisory Subcommittee Dr. Neda Maghbouleh	Chair-Student Concerns Subcommittee J Overholser

 

See also Canadian Sociological Association Subcommittees

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President: Dr. Temitope Oriola

Temitope Oriola is professor of criminology/sociology and associate dean in the Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta. He is an exemplary scholar and public intellectual known for field-defining sociological research on terrorism and policing, leadership and service to his discipline, and commitment to mobilizing knowledge in support of informed public debate. Internationally, he is known for his work on terrorism studies. In Canada, Professor Oriola’s scholarship focuses on policing and use of force. A decorated researcher and teacher, Professor Oriola has received multiple national and international recognitions, including an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and a National Dorothy Killam Fellowship, one of only eight recipients in Canada.

Professor Oriola is one of Canada’s most sought-after public intellectuals on police reform. He has served as special adviser to the Government of Alberta on Police Act Review. He is a member of the Board of Directors, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences and a columnist with the Edmonton Journal. Professor Oriola is also a recipient of the Governor General of Canada Academic Gold Medal (2011), Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship (2015 and 2017), Kathleen W. Klawe Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2020), the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations (CAFA) Distinguished Academic Award (2022), Arts Research Excellence Award (2022) and the Rosalind Smith Award (2023), among others. On the recommendation of the Alberta Legislature in January 2023, Professor Oriola received the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for ‘exceptional qualities and outstanding service to our province in the field of Advanced Education and Public Service.’

President-Elect: Dr. Liam Swiss

Liam Swiss is Professor of Sociology, and Head of the Department of Sociology at Acadia University. His research examines foreign aid, global development, the politics of Canadian aid policy, and gender equality. His current SSHRC Insight Development Grant (with Dr. Lisa Kaida, McMaster University) examines the relationship between Canadian foreign aid and the remittance sending behaviour of migrants to Canada from low- and middle-income countries. His published research has appeared in journals such as the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Science Research, and World Development, among others. He is the author of the book The Globalization of Foreign Aid: Developing Consensus (Routledge 2018). He is a two-time former President of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development, and was a co-founder of the CSA’s Sociology of Development Research Cluster.

Past-President: Dr. Irene Shankar

The distinguishing mark of Irene Shankar’s academic career is her dedication to critical engagement with complex intersections of marginalization and inequality within her scholarship and teaching. As an associate professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University, Dr. Shankar’s main areas of research and teaching are Feminist Theories, Sociology of Gender, Critical Race Theory, Qualitative Methodology, and the Sociology of Health and Illness. Dr. Shankar’s ability to use her critical scholarship to inspire activism and change has resulted in numerous commendations for her leadership in both teaching and research, such as the Distinguished Faculty Award and the Faculty of Arts Outstanding Researcher Award. Most recently, her article titled “Increasing Pathways for Leadership for Black, Indigenous and Women of Colour,” co-authored with Dr. Motapanyane, was published in Atlantis and a co-authored chapter with Dr. Lozanski, “Academia and the Propagation of Privilege” is included In Reading Sociology: Decolonizing Canada (4th edition). Her current collaborative research project, with Dr. Mason, examines SSHRC IDG-funded research on (under)utilization of feminist expertise within PSI sexual assault policies and programs.

Dr. Shankar is currently completing her one-year term as the CSA executive as past president. Dr Shankar served on the CSA’s Equity Subcommittee before being elected as President-Elect in 2021. Along with the regular presidency duties, Dr. Shankar was instrumental in developing the association’s Operating Standards and Principles on Equity governing policies, initiating processes for enhanced member and research cluster involvement, and revising the award program adjudication processes in accordance with CSA mandate of anti-racism, equity, and inclusion.

Treasurer: Dr. Julia Woodhall-Melnik

Julia Woodhall-Melnik is an Associate Professor with the Department of Social Science, in the Faculty of Arts at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. She is also the Canada Research Chair in Resilient Communities. Julia continues to produce innovative research which explores employment and housing as social determinants of physical and mental health, addiction and wellbeing. Her work investigates the effectiveness of publicly funded rehousing and housing loss prevention interventions on health and housing outcomes, employment and income. Her goal is to produce research that positively impacts the quality of life of low-income and impoverished Canadians. Julia has been serving as the Treasurer of the CSA since 2021.

Secretary: Dr. Zohreh BayatRizi

Zohreh BayatRizi is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Alberta. She received her MA and PhD degrees from the University of British Columbia and her BA degree from the University of Tehran. Her main interests are the history of sociology, sociology of death and dying, and sociology of Iran. She is the author of Life Sentences: The Modern Ordering of Mortality. She teaches courses in social theory, sociology of death, and introductory sociology. She has previously served on the CSA Research Advisory Subcommittee and chaired the Social Theory Research Cluster.

Communications Officer: Dr. Naomi Lightman

Naomi Lightman is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her areas of research expertise include care work, migration, gender, social policy, and research methodology. Her academic work has been published in various journals including Gender & Society, European Sociological Review, International Migration Review, and Health and Social Care in the Community, and has been supported by seven tri-council and institutional grants for which she was Principal Investigator (jointly valued at over $215,000). In addition, she is the co-author of the second edition of the textbook Social Policy in Canada. Dr. Lightman has collaborated on research focused on gender and inequality with various social agencies and government bodies including the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, the Calgary Local Immigration Partnership, Social Planning Toronto, and the Wellesley Institute.

Canadian Review of Sociology Journal Managing Editor: Dr. Dominique Clément

Dominique Clément is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta and a member of the Royal Society of Canada (CNSAS). He is the author of the award-winning books Canada’s Rights Revolution, Equality Deferred, Human Rights in Canada, and Debating Rights Inflation. His edited collections include Alberta's Human Rights Story and Debating Dissent. Clément has been a Visiting Scholar in Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland and the United Kingdom. He has written extensively on human rights, social movements, and legal studies. He has consulted for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and has served on the board of numerous community organizations, including the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. His websites, HistoryOfRights.ca and statefunding.ca, serve as research and teaching portals on the study of human rights and social movements in Canada.

Anti-Islamophobia Subcommittee Chair: Dr. Nadiya Ali

Nadiya has pursued a multidisciplinary international social science career, with a focus on race, racialization, cultural production, and community-action research. She has given particular attention to examining and innovatively supporting the pathways of resistance and subject-formation that come to be carved out by populations sitting on the receiving end of racializing and marginalizing structures, with particular attention given to Anti-Black Islamophobia/Anti-Muslim Racism. More broadly, her scholarship is in conversation with and continues to be informed by Black Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Critical Muslim Studies. Nadiya currently holds an Assistant Professor position with the Sociology department at Trent University and is the co-founder and Chair of the newly formed Anti-Islamophobia Subcommittee.

Black Caucus Chair: Dr. Johanne Jean-Pierre

Johanne Jean-Pierre is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at York University. Johanne conducts research in English and in French in the fields of sociology of education, sociology of race and ethnicity, youth studies, and research methodology. Her research focusses on the social, cultural, and political factors that shape the school and postsecondary trajectories of marginalized and minoritized children, youth, and young adults. Her previous and ongoing research examines specifically the experiences of official language minorities, newcomer youth, and Black Canadians. Johanne is a co-founder and 2023-2024 Chair of the Black Caucus.

Decolonization Subcommittee Co-Chair: Dr. Jeff Denis

Jeff Denis is an Associate Professor of Sociology at McMaster University. A settler Canadian of mixed European ancestry, his research focuses on the social psychology of racism and colonialism and the policies, practices, strategies, and alliances that can help build more just and sustainable societies. He is the author of Canada at a Crossroads: Boundaries, Bridges, and Laissez-Faire Racism in Indigenous-Settler Relations (winner of the John Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award in 2021). He has been involved in multiple community-based research projects and is currently completing two SSHRC-funded projects – one on long-term Indigenous-settler alliances (with colleagues at Trent and Waterloo) and another on local understandings of and barriers to reconciliation in Treaty 3 territory (with the non-profit community group Reconciliation Kenora). He is a founder of the CSA’s Indigenous-Settler Relations and Decolonization Research Cluster and has served on both the Equity Subcommittee and the Decolonization Subcommittee.

Decolonization Subcommittee Co-Chair: Dr. Yvonne Sherwood

Yvonne P. Sherwood is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her work is grounded in and through Indigenous womxn’s frontline organizing and activism. She is Spokane-Coeur d’Alene and raised on the Yakama Nation Reservation in what is currently known as WA State. These locations and relations inform her work. From this perspective, Yvonne studies the politics of knowledge, environmentalism, and law with a focus on the interplay of settler colonialism, white supremacy, and heteropatriarchy. She also contributes to language revitalization and food sovereignty efforts through her learning and scholarship.

Equity Issues Subcommittee Chair: Dr. Jessica Braimoh

Jessica Braimoh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University. As an anti-racist, queer, feminist sociologist, Jessica’s research focuses on three integrated streams. The first stream investigates how geography mediates the institutional response to social disadvantage. Here she considers how understandings of geography are embedded in policy dimensions and institutional responses to inequality and vulnerability. The second stream of research examines how processes of criminalization and surveillance are embedded in multiple systems of domination including settler colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and cis heteropatriarchy. Finally, the third stream of research explores the coordination of socio-legal processes among multiple organizations and public institutions. Guided by principles of social justice, Jessica’s research contributes to an understanding of how seemingly neutral policy categories and institutional practices work to exacerbate and rationalize historically entrenched relations of exclusion and oppression.

Francophone Affairs Subcommittee Chair: Dr. Guillaume Durou

Guillaume Durou is an Assistant Professor, Campus Saint-Jean whose research areas include; Sociologie historique canadienne et Québécoise, sociologie historique de la famille, antisémitisme, histoire du capitalisme, analyse des classes, théories des classes sociales, et Francophonie de l'Ouest. He is a co-founder of the Francophone Affairs Subcommittee and the Prix d'excellence en sociologie de langue française. In addition to this, he founded the Marxist Sociology Research Cluster and is the Chair of the Comparative and Historical Sociology Research Cluster.

Policy, Ethics and Professional Concerns Subcommittee Chair: Dr. Augustine SJ Park

Augustine SJ Park is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Carleton University. Her research interests include transitional justice, political violence, restorative and community-based justice, settler colonialism, race, and higher education. She is currently the Chair of the Carleton University Research Ethics Board, and has served on various CSA committees and sub-committees in recent years.

Research Advisory Subcommittee Chair: Dr. Neda Maghbouleh

Neda Maghbouleh is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. Her research and teaching addresses race, ethnicity, migration, and identity in Canada and the United States, with expertise on communities of West Asian and Arab background.

Student Concerns Subcommittee Chair: J Overholser

J Overholser is a PhD student at the University of Calgary. Their work both in academia as a queer and trans* studies scholar and within community/public service has been built upon a foundation of critical social theories. Thus, J emphasizes the need to apply academic research, knowledge, and inquiry to address contemporary inequalities and marginalization faced by a variety of communities and their members. With this foundation J also focuses on improving the accessibility and inclusiveness of academic/research institutions and spaces. J is truly excited to bring their academic experiences and background in 2SLGBTQ+ community outreach to this position. Most notably when it comes to collecting and disseminating information and resources to help address specific community concerns, further building knowledge mobilization networks to support graduate students, and engaging in accessible and informal communication methods.