Katrina Leclerc
Part-Time Professor | Faculty staff
E-mail : kleclerc@ustpaul.ca
Katrina Leclerc is a PhD candidate in Conflict Studies and part-time professor at Saint Paul University. She also teaches in the peace and security certificate programmes at Senghor University in Egypt and serves as a sessional instructor at the University of Winnipeg. She holds a Master’s in Peace and Conflict Studies from the joint University of Manitoba–University of Winnipeg programme, and a Bachelor’s in Human Rights and Conflict Resolution from the University of Winnipeg.
Her research and teaching focus on feminist peacebuilding, inclusive governance, and the intersections of the United Nations’ Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agendas. Katrina has authored several publications, including academic articles, policy reports, and toolkits. She is co-editor of the volume Youth Leading Change: Emerging Sites of Knowledge in Peace and Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), and is regularly invited to speak at global forums and universities on gender, youth, and peacebuilding policy.
Katrina is a globally recognised peacebuilding expert and gender policy advisor. She chairs the Women, Peace and Security Network – Canada (WPSN-C) and co-founded the Canadian Coalition for Youth, Peace & Security (CCYPS). From 2014 to 2024, she held various leadership roles at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), including Program Director, where her work on gender- and age-responsive policy was cited as best practice in three UN Secretary-General reports. She also served as Parliamentary Affairs Advisor to The Honourable Marilou McPhedran, an independent Senator for Manitoba.
She has advised governments, UN agencies, and civil society organisations in Canada, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal, and Rwanda. She led the development of Chad’s first WPS National Action Plan, advised on the DRC’s first YPS plan, and chaired Canadian civil society engagement for the country’s third WPS plan.
Katrina is a rostered expert with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), and the Norwegian Refugee Council’s NORCAP. She has also served as a researcher and consultant to the UN Department of Peace Operations, UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Women, and Global Affairs Canada, specialising in inclusive policy development, civic space, and civil society-government collaboration.
Doctorate of Philosophy, Conflict Studies (Saint-Paul University, forthcoming)
Master of Arts, Peace and Conflict Studies (University of Manitoba)
Bachelor of Arts, Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (University of Winnipeg)
Feminist peacebuilding theory; critical peace and conflict studies; intersectionality in peace and security; feminist and postcolonial approaches to governance; Women, Peace and Security (WPS); Youth, Peace and Security (YPS); intergenerational and gender analysis in policy; localisation of peacebuilding frameworks
Edited books:
- Leclerc, K., Yague, E. I. B., & Berents, H. (Eds.). (2025). Youth Leading Change: Emerging Sites of Knowledge in Peace and Conflict (1st ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. link.springer.com/book/9783031958618
- Leclerc, K., Singh, N., & Graham, S. (Eds.). (2026). Women, Peace and Security in Canada and the United States: A Fragmented Peace (1st ed.). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. [forthcoming; part of Routledge Studies in Gender and Global Politics]
Academic articles:
- Leclerc, K. (2025). Feminist Government but No Feminist Foreign Policy: The Curious Case of Canada. Politics & Gender, 1–6. DOI:10.1017/S1743923X25100196
- Leclerc, K., & Pourmalek, P. (2024). Women Peacebuilders at the Forefront of COVID-19: Documenting Feminist Approaches to Reducing Impacts of Crises. International Studies Review, 26(4), DOI: 10.1093/isr/viae041.3
- Leclerc, K., Stoumen, N., Despain, A., & Zabihi, S. (2023). Slipping Through the Cracks: Young Women’s Exclusion from Peace and Security Processes. Al-Raida, 47(1), 3-30.
- Leclerc, K., & Wong, S. (2021). North America needs Youth, Peace and Security: young people shifting tides for positive peace. Potentia: Journal of International and Public Affairs, 12(1), DOI: 10.18192/potentia.v12i0.5885
- Leclerc, K., & Rouhshahbaz, S. (2021). Young Peacebuilders Challenge Traditional Knowledge Creation. Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis, 6, 16-40. ISSN: 2631-746X (Print)
- Leclerc, K. (2021). Gender Perspectives in Contemporary Peacebuilding: Collaborative Approaches to Conflict Responses. Global Affairs Review, 2(1), 1-19. DOI: 10.51330/gar.0020213
Book chapters:
- Leclerc, K., & Rouhshahbaz, S. (2025). Young Peacebuilders as Architects of Knowledge: Challenging Traditional Paradigms (Ed.), Overcoming Violence in Transdisciplinary Perspective: A Praxis Anthology of Peace (p. 149-172). Frontpage Publications.
- Leclerc, K. (2021). Instrumentalizing the Youth, Peace and Security agenda for meaningful impact and growth (Ed.), Youth, peacebuilding, and sustainability: Connecting Theory to Practice (p. 19-32). Manila: Seeds for Mindanao’s Advocacy and Youth Leadership.
- Leclerc, K. (2021). More Than tokens: Canadian Women in Decision-making Processes in the Post-1995 Beijing Platform for Action Era (Ed.), The Journey to Gender Equality: Mapping the Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Plan for Action (p. 80-89). San José: University for Peace.