Authors

Julia G. Bentley is currently a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, an External Research Associate of the York Centre for Asian Research and an Advisor to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Malaysia. Julia is also a Distinguished Fellow with APF Canada.

She served in the Canadian foreign service with distinction for 32 years, occupying several senior executive positions at Global Affairs Canada related to Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

Ms. Bentley has also represented Canada as a diplomat abroad. She served as Canada’s High Commissioner in Malaysia (2017-2020) and previously at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing (twice), the Canadian High Commission in Delhi, and the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei.

She took leave from her diplomatic career to serve the non-profit sector as Chief Representative of Winrock International in China and Director of its NGO Capacity Building Program, funded by the Ford Foundation, and during a previous leave, as co-ordinator of Canada’s Civil Society Program in China.

In 2022, she was on secondment for a year at the University of Toronto. In 2023, she held a fellowship at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs for a semester. 

She holds degrees in East Asian Studies from Princeton University and the University of Toronto and was a Canada-China Scholar in modern history at Nanjing University.

Suyesha Dutta is a Research Scholar with the Asia Pacific Foundation’s South Asia Team. She holds an MSc in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford and a B.A. from the University of British Columbia, with a double major in History and Modern European Studies. Her research interests concern state-sponsored violence and political mobilization in postcolonial India.

Suvolaxmi Dutta Choudhury is APF Canada’s Program Manager for South Asia. She holds an M.Phil. in International Politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (India). Her research interests include citizenship rights, migration, nationalism, ethnic conflict, and democratic governance in India.

Tanya Dawar is a Research Scholar with the South Asia Team at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She holds a Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs from the University of British Columbia, a Master’s in Economics from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and a B.Sc. in Mathematics (Honours) from the University of Delhi. 

Tanya's research interests include international trade, environmental issues, and global politics.

Shruti Jhunjhunwala is a Research Scholar with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada’s International Trade and Investment Team. She holds an MSc in International Business from HEC Montreal. Her research interests include private-public partnerships as well as inclusive and sustainable trade.

Xuemeng Wang is a Research Scholar with the International Trade and Investment team at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She completed her Master’s in International Studies from Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on socio-economic development, tackling associated challenges, and promoting social equality and sustainable development practices.

Charlotte Atkins is a former Project Specialist with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada's Business Asia team. She has a Masters in Political Science and Asian Studies from the University of Toronto, where her research focused on contentious politics in Asia. She has since expanded her research areas to include policy, trade, and investment between Canada and the Asia Pacific through her work at APF Canada.

Anastasia Ufimtseva is a Program Manager, Business Asia, at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She holds a PhD in Global Governance from the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University with a specialization in international political economy. Her dissertation examined Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Canadian and Russian oil and natural gas sectors and she has published widely on trade and investment relations between Asia and Canada, specifically on FDI, governance, and energy policy. Prior to joining APF Canada, Anastasia worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Jack Austin Centre for Asia Pacific Business Studies at Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business.

Bart Édes is a policy analyst, commentator, and author of Learning From Tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Prepare for the Next Big Disruption (2021). An APF Canada Distinguished Fellow, he focuses on developing Asian economies, international development, cross-border trade and investment, innovation, social policies, and transformative trends reshaping the world.