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Katrina Leclerc

Katrina Leclerc

Part-Time Professor | Faculty staff

E-mail : kleclerc@ustpaul.ca

Dr. Katrina Leclerc is a peace and conflict scholar, educator, and international policy advisor. She holds a PhD in Conflict Studies from Saint Paul University, a Master’s in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Manitoba–University of Winnipeg joint program, and a Bachelor’s in Human Rights and Conflict Resolution from the University of Winnipeg. She is a Postdoctoral Adjunct Research Fellow at Griffith University in Australia, teaches in the Human Rights Program and the History Department at the University of Winnipeg, and is also a sessional lecturer at Université de Saint-Boniface and Canadian Mennonite University. Internationally, she serves as adjunct faculty in the peace and security certificate programs at Université Senghor in Egypt and holds the 2027 Hunt-Simes Visiting Junior Chair of Sexuality Studies at the University of Sydney.

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 numerous academic articles, policy reports, and practical guidance documents. She is co-editor of Youth Leading Change: Emerging Sites of Knowledge in Peace and Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), Women, Peace and Security in Canada and the United States: A Fragmented Peace (Routledge, 2026), and Youth, Peace, and the Politics of Worldbuilding (Bristol University Press, forthcoming 2027). She is regularly invited to speak at universities and international forums on gender, youth, and peacebuilding policy.

Katrina chairs the WPS Network–Canada (WPSN-C), co-founded the Canadian Coalition for YPS (CCYPS), and currently serves on the UN Advisory Group for the Second Independent Progress Study on YPS. She previously held a series of leadership positions at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), culminating as Program Director, where her work on gender- and age-responsive peacebuilding was recognized as best practice in multiple UN reports. From 2017 to 2020, she served as Parliamentary Affairs Advisor to The Hon. Marilou McPhedran, former independent senator for the province of Manitoba.

She has advised governments, UN agencies, and civil society organizations in over 30 countries across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. 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. She has also served as a researcher and consultant to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), UN Department of Peace Operations, UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Women, and Global Affairs Canada, specializing in inclusive policy development, civic space, and civil society-government collaboration.

Doctorate of Philosophy, Conflict Studies (Saint Paul University)

Master of Arts, Peace and Conflict Studies (University of Manitoba)

Bachelor of Arts, Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (University of Winnipeg)