Institute Leaders

Dr. Arshad-Ayaz obtained her Ph.D. from McGill University in Comparative and International Education. She is Assistant Professor of Educational Studies at the Department of Education, Concordia University. Her teaching and research interests are located in the field of social justice particularly in the areas of diversity/anti-racism; environmental sustainability; responsible citizenship; sociology of technology especially ‘hate speech, violence, extremism and ‘othering’ on social media; peace studies especially teaching about terror and extremism; international development and globalization.  Dr. Arshad-Ayaz has published widely in these areas; her research has been funded by provincial and national funding agencies. She has presented her research at prestigious national and international conferences, seminars and symposia. Leading media sources regularly interview her for her views on teaching about diversity, technology integration and use of social media for education.

Dr. David Secko is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Concordia University (Montréal). His amazement at the speed at which an amoeba could crawl, led him to a PhD (2004) from the University of British Columbia (UBC) that focused on the soil amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. However, upon finishing his PhD, he started writing about science for The Scientist magazine and Vancouver’s Tyee. Now at Concordia University, he is working to give journalists new tools to communicate science. His interests extend to research that links across journalism, science and ethical issues to clarify and experiment with the roles of the public, experts and journalists in the democratic governance of biotechnology. These experiments involve numerous public engagement events where stories about wicked problems emerge to inspire social change. Dr. Secko won a Concordia University Research Award for his contributions in 2011, the Dean’s Award for excellence as a new scholar in 2010 and the Hal Straight Gold Medal in Journalism from UBC’s School of Journalism in 2006.

Dr. Boies (PhD The University of Western Ontario) holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Leadership Development. Her research focuses on leadership in educational institutions, non-governmental organizations, and the private industry. Through a variety of methodologies and research contexts, her research aims to understand how to identify and develop effective leadership practices. Her research has been published, among others, in the Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Business and Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and Journal of Personnel Psychology, in addition to book chapters and numerous academic conferences.
Dr. Boies’ leadership research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture. In 2006, Dr. Boies was the recipient of the Junior Researcher Award at the John Molson School of Business.

Dr. Andrew Ryder received his doctorate in psychology (clinical) from the University of British Columbia and currently directs the Culture, Health, and Personality Lab in the Department of Psychology at Concordia University, where he holds the position of Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Training. He is also co-director of Concordia's Centre for Clinical Research in Health. Dr. Ryder’s research lies at the intersection of cultural, clinical, and personality psychology. His research has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Health Canada, the Fond Québécois de Recherche pour la Société et la Culture, and the Fond Québécois pour la Recherche sur la Santé. His current research focuses on the intersection of cultural and personality variables in shaping emotional disorders in China, Japan, South Korea. He also conducts local research on adaptation to complex multicultural and multilingual societies.