The Department of Political Science is delighted to announce that Dr. Irene Bloemraad will join the University of British Columbia as the President’s Excellence Chair in Global Migration and as a Professor in the Departments of Political Science and Sociology, commencing July 1, 2024.
She will also serve as the Co-Director of the Centre of Migration Studies in the Faculty of Arts and will continue to co-direct the Boundaries, Membership and Belonging program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, a Canada-based global research organization.
About Dr. Irene Bloemraad
Dr. Irene Bloemraad
An internationally recognized expert on migration and citizenship, Dr. Bloemraad studies how immigrants become incorporated into the political communities where they live, and the consequences of migration for politics and understandings of membership. Her research has been published in academic journals spanning the fields of sociology, political science, history, and ethnic/migration studies, and she has authored or co-edited five books including The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (2017), Rallying for Immigrant Rights (2011) and Becoming a Citizen (2006). In 2014-15, she served as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences panel reporting on the integration of immigrants into U.S. society and in 2020-21, she served as the elected chair of the International Migration section of the American Sociological Association.
Dr. Bloemraad will be joining us from the University of California, Berkeley, where she is currently the Class of 1951 Professor of Sociology. She is also the founding Director of the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative, as well as the past chair and director of the Canadian Studies program.
Dr. Bloemraad received her B.A. (Honours, Political Science) and M.A. (Sociology) from McGill University and her PhD (Sociology) from Harvard University. While at UC-Berkeley, Dr. Bloemraad was honoured with the university’s American Cultures Innovation in Teaching Prize (2013), the Division of Social Sciences’ Distinguished Teaching Award (2012), and the Sarlo Distinguished Mentoring Award (2008). Beyond being a widely published author and an award-winning teacher, Dr. Bloemraad also regularly shares her work with the general public, immigration stakeholders, and policymakers, from the municipal to international level. She also enjoys speaking with journalists from radio, TV, on-line and print media and has published op-ed in places such as the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and the L.A. Times.
About the UBC President’s Excellence Chairs
The President’s Excellence Chairs were created to attract great faculty who will enable cutting-edge research and an excellent student learning experience to attract top students. The recruitment of outstanding faculty to areas in which UBC already has tremendous strength will attract increased levels of research funding, which will further attract outstanding faculty and the best students. UBC will have the privilege to yield a diverse class of exceptional graduate and undergraduate students – intellectually curious, academically gifted, and socially engaged.
The chairs are in the following areas: Biodiversity Studies, Brain Health, Forest Bio-products, Precision Oncology and Healthy Aging. Each chair has an estimated value of $3-5 million. Further information on each position is available here.
