Christopher Sands is director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, the largest policy research program on Canada outside the country and the leading source of scholarship on U.S.-Canadian relations in Washington, D.C. Christopher previously directed applied policy research programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Hudson Institute, and has published extensively over a career of more than 30 years in Washington think tanks.  

Jennifer Welsh is the Canada 150 Research Chair in Global Governance and Security at McGill University. She was previously professor and chair in international relations at the European University Institute and professor in international relations at the University of Oxford, where she co-founded the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict. From 2013 to 2016, she served as the special adviser to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on the responsibility to protect. In 2025, Welsh will become the director of McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy.  

Jennifer Ditchburn is the President and CEO of the Institute for Research on Public Policy. She is a not-for-profit sector executive and seasoned communicator working to make complex public policy issues and politics better understood by Canadians. From 2016 to 2021, she was the Editor-in-Chief of the IRPP’s influential digital magazine, Policy Options.