Dr. Audrey Kobayashi

A native of British Columbia, she completed a B.A. (1976) and M.A. (1978) at the University of British Columbia, and a PhD (1983) at UCLA. She spent two years in Japan as a graduate fellow studying the impact of emigration to Canada, and subsequently has conducted extensive research on the historical geographies of Japanese Canadians, including in-depth study of the development of Powell Street. She was a member of the negotiating committee for the 1988 Redress Settlement, an experience that shifted her work to address more directly questions of racism, human rights, violence, and oppression. She taught in Geography and East Asian Studies at McGill University from 1983 to 1994, then moved to Queen's, initially as Director of the Institute of Women's Studies (1994 to 1999) and thereafter as Professor of Geography. She has been a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, University College London and Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand, and in 1994 was a Fulbright Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC. Other positions include President of the Canadian Association of Geographers (1999-2001), and President of the Association of American Geographers (2011-2012). In 2011 she was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada. She is a Fellow of the American Association of Geographers, and has received various awards including the AAG Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Harold Rose Award for Anti-racism in Scholarship and Practice. In 2018 she was named the Patricia Monture Distinguished University Professor, and in 2021 became Distinguished University Professor Emerita.