Dr. Michael Hawes is a professor of political science, a tireless advocate of international education, and a proud alumnus of the Fulbright program. He assumed the leadership of Fulbright Canada in September of 2001 and has had the privilege of directing the program through some very exciting times, including the challenges stemming from the global health emergency. He is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the United States of America and Executive Director of Fulbright Canada. Under his direction Fulbright Canada has witnessed dramatic growth in its programs and in the number of students and scholars that the program supports.
In 1985 he joined the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University in Kingston as a professor of international relations. He has also taught political risk assessment and cross-cultural negotiation in the Queen's School of Business. During the 1999-2000 academic year Michael was the J. William Fulbright Distinguished Professor of International and Area Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and the John A. Sproul Senior Research Fellow in Canadian Studies. In the Spring of 2010, he was Visiting Research Chair and Professor at the Center for Public Diplomacy in the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He has also held posts as Visiting Scholar at the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico in Mexico City, Visiting Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of British Columbia, Visiting Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs in Stockholm, Visiting Professor of International Political Economy at Tsukuba University in Japan, and, on several occasions, Visiting Professor of International Political Economy at the International University of Japan in Niigata Japan. Michael was Acting Director of the Centre for International Relations at Queen’s University, Senior Fellow at PARMEC (the Program for the Study of Mexico, the United States, and Canada) at ITAM in Mexico City, Research Associate at Nichi-Bei Ken (the Center for Japan-U.S. Relations) at Kokusai Daigakku, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Socio-Economic Planning at Tsukuba University in Japan.
Michael holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto, an M.A. in international affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, and a B.A.H in economics and history from the University of Toronto. He has published widely on foreign policy, political culture, international economic relations, regional integration, and related subjects. He has also sat on a number of national advisory committees and on ministerial advisory boards. He currently chairs the International Advisory Board of the Institute for Studies in International Development at McGill University, is the Chair of the Board of Directors at Canada World Youth, and a member of the Editorial Board at the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal. He also co-convenes the Canada Colloquium Series at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
His most recent book, 1968 in Canada: A Year and its Legacies, co-edited with Andy Holman and Christopher Kirkey, was released by the University of Ottawa Press in April 2021. Other recent books include Canadian Public Diplomacy (co-edited with Nicholas Cull and published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020) and Canadian Foreign Policy in a Unipolar World (co-edited with Christopher Kirkey and published by Oxford University Press in 2018). In addition, he has been a guest editor for several recent special issues of refereed journals, including the London Journal of Canadian Studies, featuring scholarly works on inclusion and diversity, which was released in 2019; the American Review of Canadian Studies special issue on Canada, the United States, and Indigenous People (49.2, 2019), and a special issue of the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (Volume 18.1, 2012).
On May 14, 2016 Professor Hawes was awarded the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (Honoris Causa) from the State University of New York, and delivered the commencement address at the SUNY Plattsburgh graduation ceremonies. On June 6, 2018, Professor Hawes was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) from Vancouver Island University, and delivered the commencement address at the Faculty of Education and Science and Technology ceremony. In September of 2021 Dr. Hawes was appointed as a Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto.