Faculty and Staff

SMU-IDS full-time, part-time, associate and adjunct faculty bring scholarly and practical field experience to their respective research areas. Many faculty have well-established international reputations as both development scholars and development practitioners. The IDS Program is home to the Canada Research Chair in International Development Studies, a position filled by Dr. Gavin Fridell.

IDS faculty members have a wide range of interests. Much of their work is focused on the interdisciplinary study of the political economy of development and globalization. Within this broad framework, SMU-IDS has particular expertise in:   

• Labour and Development
• Environment and Development
• Migration and Development
• Security and Development
• Global Governance and Development
• Education and Development
• Cooperatives and Development

Undergraduate Program Coordinator

The IDS Undergraduate Coordinator is responsible for undergraduate student inquiries concerning the program.

Dr. Evangelia Tastsoglou
Office: McNally South 427
Phone: 420-5884
E-mail 

Graduate Program Coordinator

Graduate students requiring academic advice should consult with the IDS Graduate Coordinator.

Graduate students who have selected a thesis supervisor should consult with the supervisor for all academic matters relating to their thesis. 

Dr. Rohini Bannerjee, Graduate Coordinator
Office: McNally North 429
Phone: 902-420-5814
E-mail

The IDS Program Secretary is responsible for providing administrative support to the IDS Coordinators and IDS Faculty, in addition to providing information to students about registration, declaration of majors, and similar academic matters relating to the IDS Program.

Department Secretary
Office: McNally South 424
Phone: 902-420-5768
E-mail 

IDS Executive Committee

Dr. Marc Doucet
International Relations, International Political Economy, Global Social Movements
Contact 

Dr. Kate Ervine
Environment and development, political ecology, carbon markets, biodiversity conservation, market environmentalism
Office: McNally South 421
Phone:902-491-6224
Contact

Dr. Gavin Fridell
Fair trade and free trade, the politics of coffee and other commodities, alcohol policy and politics, the political economy of trade and development, the political economy of food and agriculture, global political economy, North-South relations
Office: McNally South 423
Phone: 902-420-5767
Contact

Dr. Rylan Higgins
Anthropology of food labour and marginality; social class, gender and consumerism; visual anthropology; engaged and public anthropology; Viet Nam
Contact

Dr. Sonja Novkovic
An economist specializing in cooperatives, credit unions and development
Contact 

Dr. Evangelia (Evie) Tastsoglou
Feminist and intersectional perspectives on women, gender and various aspects of international migration; Canadian immigration and integration; violence and migration; citizenship and belonging; transnationalism and diasporas; migration and development.
Contact 

IDS Emeritus

Dr. Henry Veltmeyer 
Theory and practice of development, globalization, transnational corporations and the world economy, development and class, Latin America and the Caribbean
Contact

IDS Program Committee

Students are encouraged to work with faculty from other disciplines who are part of the IDS Program Committee, many of whom have well-established international reputations as development scholars and practitioners.

For the CVs of any IDS faculty or Program Committee members, please email the person directly requesting the same. 

Andrés Arteaga
(Ph.D. U of Ottawa) Post-conflict scenarios, peace and reconciliation, historical memory and grassroots movements in Latin America
Contact 

Rohini Bannerjee
(Ph.D. Western University) (Modern Languages & Classics) Contemporary Indo-Mauritian Francophone identity and representations, literary theory; postcolonial theory; Women and Gender Studies; Queer studies. South Asian culture & film
Contact

Rosana Barbosa
(Ph.D., Toronto) Latin American History, Migrations and Brazilian-Canadian Historical Relations.
Contact

Tony Charles
(Ph.D., British Columbia) Community conservation, coastal communities, small-scale fisheries, natural resource management and development, sustainable coastal development, sustainability indicators, Latin America and Caribbean
Contact

Cathy Conrad
(Ph.D., Wilfred Laurier) Water security, environment and development, community-based environmental monitoring, food security, natural hazards, climate change, clandestine migration 
Contact

Claudia Defuentes
(Ph.D., Universidad Autonomy Metropolitan) Systems of innovation, academy-industry collaboration, absorptive capabilities, science and technology policy; social innovation
Contact

Marc Doucet
(Ph.D., Ottawa) International relations, international organizations, contemporary form of international intervention, and critical approaches to security
Contact

Kate Ervine
(Ph.D., York University) Climate change mitigation, carbon markets, the political economy of global environmental governance, environment and development
Contact

Gavin Fridell
(Ph.D., York University) Fair trade and free trade, the politics of coffee and other commodities, alcohol policy and politics, the political economy of trade and development, North-South relations
Contact

Maria Gomez
(Ph.D., New York) The relationship between prejudice, violence and critical legal theory
Contact

Sailaja Krishnamurti
(Ph.D., York University) Histories and cultures of South Asian migration, pedagogies of religion and politics in the South Asian diaspora, religion and race in contemporary popular culture and youth culture, feminist theory and intersectionality in religious studies, religion, colonialism, and migration in Canada 
Contact

Rylan Higgins
(Ph.D., Arizona) Anthropology of food labour and marginality; social class, gender and consumerism; visual anthropology; engaged and public anthropology; Viet Nam
Contact

James Morrison
(Ph.D., Ibadan) Oral History, Immigration and ethnicity
Contact

Adam Spires
Latin American literature, Dystopian studies, Chicano studies
Contact

Sonja Novkovic
(Ph.D., McGill) Economist, specializing in cooperatives, credit unions and development
Contact

Adam Spires
(Ph.D., Alberta) Latin American studies
Contact

Evangelia Tastsoglou
(Ph.D., Boston) Gender and migration; gender and development; human rights; and refugees
Contact

Lyubov Zhyznomirksa 
(Ph.D., Alberta) Migration studies, irregular migration, the politics of post-Soviet countries, European Union politics 
Contact

Margaret MacDonald
ex officio(Ph.D., Oxford) Dean of Arts; Religious studies; women and Christianity; 
Contact

Adjunct Faculty

Milford Bateman
(Ph.D., Bradford) Local economic development and the role of the 'local developmental state'; local finance and microfinance; cooperative development policy
Email

Catherine Baillie Abidi
(Ph. D., St. Francis Xavier) Educational Studies
Email

David Black
(Ph.D., Dalhousie) Canadian foreign policy; comparative politics of development Africa;
Email

Mehmet Nuri Gültekin
(Ph.D., Ege University) Social change; sociology of the Middle East; social and political movements in the Middle East; sociology of literature
Email

Robert Huish
(PhD., Simon Fraser University) Global health; activism and social justice; North Korea; Cuba
Email

Ronaldo Munck
(Ph.D., Essex) Labour and development; Latin America
Email

Shiva Nourpanah
(Ph. D., Dalhousie) Social Anthropology
Email

Shawna O'Hearn
(Ph. D., Waterloo) Geography
Email

Anupam Pandey
(Ph.D., Carleton University) Gender and development; method and theory in research; South Asia
Email

Sandy Petrinioti
(PhD., Panteion University Athens) Mediterranean migrations; political economy of migrations; EU migration policies; labour mobility and development
Email

Cecil Ryan
(MA, Ph.D.-cand., OISE) Community human resource development; natural resource management; community economic development; educational planning
Email

Shane Theunissen
(Ph.D., Saint Mary's University) Education and development; innovations in education for marginalized groups
Email

Edgar Zayago
(Ph.D., Zacatecas) Technology and development; nanotechnology and national development policy
Email