Abdie Kazemipur is professor of sociology at University of Lethbridge. His main lines of research are twofold: the socio-economic integration of immigrants in Canada; and the socio-cultural trends in the Middle East. He is currently studying the experiences of Muslim immigrants in Canada and some other immigrant-receiving countries

Trained as a demographer and sociologist, Dr. Boyd has written numerous articles, books and monographs on the changing family, gender inequality, international migration (with foci on policy, on immigrant integration and on immigrant women) and ethnic stratification. Her present research focuses on immigrant offspring including the 1.5 and 2nd generations, immigrant language skills, the migration of high skilled labor and immigrant re-accreditation difficulties. Past presidents of the Canadian Sociological Association, the Canadian Population Society, and the Academy of Social Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada, Dr. Boyd currently is the Chair of the International Migration section of the American Sociological Association.

Kay Deaux is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a Research Affiliate in the Department of Psychology at New York University. Her most recent book, To Be An Immigrant (Russell Sage, 2006), offers a broad-gauged social psychological analysis of immigration, focusing particularly on the perspective and experiences of the immigrant. She has served as President of the Association for Psychological Science and serves on the Advisory Committee for Cultural Contact and Immigration at the Russell Sage Foundation.

Daniel Hiebert is a Professor of Geography at UBC and Co-Director of Metropolis British Columbia, a centre of excellence dedicated to studying immigration and diversity. His research focus on the integration of immigrants in Canadian cities, particularly on issues related to their participation in housing and labour markets. He has published this research in a series of Metropolis Working Papers and a variety of academic journals. He is also engaged in international collaborative projects on these subjects, with scholars in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden, and occupied the position of Guest Professor of Migration Studies, in Memory of Willy Brandt, at Malmö University, in 2009-2010.

Alan B. Simmons is an appointed Senior Scholar in Sociology at York University. His research focuses on international migration, transnationalism, and refugee movements in the Americas, with particular attention to Canadian immigration, trade and development policies. He is currently involved in studies of Central American refugee settlement in Canada over the period since 1985, recent changes in Canadian immigration and foreign worker policies, Canadian immigrant remittances to the Caribbean, and trends in forced migration in Latin America. His most recent book is Immigration and Canada (Canadian Scholars Press, 2010).

Susan Martin holds the Donald G. Herzberg Chair in International Migration and serves as the Director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. Previously Dr. Martin served as the Executive Director of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, established by legislation to advise Congress and the President on U.S. immigration and refugee policy. She is the author of A Nation of Immigrants (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and numerous other books, monographs and articles on international migration. Dr. Martin has her MA and PhD in the History of American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania.

Els de Graauw is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Baruch College, the City University of New York. Her research lies at the intersection of immigration studies, (sub)urban politics, civic organizations, and public policy. Her book manuscript analyzes the role of community-based nonprofit organizations as public policy advocates on behalf of disadvantaged immigrants in San Francisco. De Graauw also has underway a project on municipal identification cards and undocumented immigrants as well as collaborative research on urban and suburban differences in responding to immigration. De Graauw received her Ph.D. in 2008 in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a post-doctoral researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2008-2009.

Meyer Burstein is Senior Policy Fellow of the Welcoming Communities Initiative. Prior to holding this position, Mr. Burstein served as the Executive Head of Metropolis, an international policy-research project on migration and diversity, of which he was a co-founder. He is also the former Director-General of Strategic Planning, Research and Analysis at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. In this capacity, he managed a comprehensive program of research on immigration and citizenship, coordinated the Department’s strategic planning function, and conducted ongoing strategic and operational assessments. A key focus of his work was the design and management of Canada’s economic immigration programs. Mr. Burstein has held a number of other senior positions within CIC, including Director of the Administrative Review Program for Refugees (a special program to deal expeditiously, and generously, with backlogged refugee claims) and Director of the Data Analysis and Forecasts Division.

Harald Bauder is an associate professor in the Graduate Program in Immigration and Settlement Studies (ISS) and the Department of Geography at Ryerson University. His current research projects involve the economic integration of immigrants, ethnic economies, the mobility of privileged labour, and immigration policies and discourses in Canada and Europe. His books include Work on the West Side (Lexington Books, 2002); Labor Movement: How Migration Regulates Labor Markets (Oxford University Press, 2006); Critical Geographies: A Collection of Readings (co-editor, Praxis (e)Press, 2008); and Immigration Dialectic: Imagining Community, Economy and Nation (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming this summer).

Ron Schmidt, Sr., is professor of political science at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of Language Policy and Identity Politics in the United States (Temple University Press, 2000) and lead co-author of Newcomers, Outsiders, and Insiders: Immigrants and American Racial Politics in the Early 21st Century (University of Michigan Press, 2010), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on language policy conflicts in the U.S. and Canada, Latino politics in the U.S., and immigrant incorporation and integration in the U.S. and Canada. He has been the president of the Western Political Science Association. He was a Fulbright research scholar at the University of Montreal in 2005-06.