The John H. McArthur Research Fellowship

The John H. McArthur Research Fellowship, established by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in 2021, honours the legacy of the late Dr. John H. McArthur — a distinguished Canadian, former Chair of APF Canada’s Board of Directors, and Dean Emeritus of Harvard Business School. Since its launch, the Fellowship has supported mid-career scholars conducting original, policy-relevant research to deepen Canada’s understanding of the Indo-Pacific region.

APF Canada's four John H. McArthur Research Fellows for 2026-27 are: Wolfgang Alschner, Arash Habibi Lashkari, Jonathan Berkshire Miller, and Stephen Noakes (see below). 

All four fellows, in response to the shifting global order and Canada’s evolving strategic priorities, will explore the intersection of Canada-U.S. relations and Indo-Pacific engagement. Their work – on supply chain resilience, digital trade norms, critical minerals, and Canada’s evolving relationships with the U.S. and major power in the Indo-Pacific – will inform Canadian policymakers and the public through published research, briefings to key stakeholders in government and the private sector, and an annual high-profile public symposium to be held in Canada.  

The Fellowship aims to:

•    Foster binational (U.S., Canada) and multidisciplinary scholarship on shared Indo-Pacific challenges;

•    Produce timely, action-oriented research for Canadian and international audiences;

•    Support the next generation of thought leaders advancing Canada’s Indo-Pacific engagement;

•    Build a robust alumni network of McArthur Fellows that, over the next decade, will grow to 50 members — a vital asset for Canada in navigating an increasingly dynamic and uncertain global environment.

Each Fellow receives a $C25,000 grant to support their work over a 12-month period. The program is open to mid-career researchers and policy experts with 10–20 years of experience.

For more information about this research fellowship program, please email info@asiapacific.ca

Launched in 2021, the John H. McArthur Research Fellowship builds on the success of the John H. McArthur Distinguished Fellowship, supported by the creation of a $2-million fund and a number of generous donors, awarded to an accomplished global thought leader who elevated the work of the Foundation through public engagement.

Support the John H. McArthur Research Fellowship

2021 John H. McArthur Tribute Video
 

John H. McArthur Research Fellows (2026-2027)

Wolfgang Alschner is a Full Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, where he holds the Hyman Soloway Chair in Business and Trade Law. Wolfgang is an expert in trade law and policy, international investment law and arbitration, as well as the empirical and computational analysis of law. He co-leads a project on Canada's Critical Minerals Diplomacy.

Wolfgang serves as co-editor of the World Trade Review and sits on the board of the Journal of International Economic Law. He is also McMillan LLP’s Academic in Residence, advising on trade remedies and international trade matters. Wolfgang actively comments on current events, including through op-eds in The Globe and Mail, and publishes a bi-weekly Substack, Economic Security 101, tracking Canada's evolving trade and investment policy. Wolfgang holds a PhD in International Law from the Graduate Institute in Geneva and a Masters in Law from Stanford Law School.

Dr. Arash Habibi Lashkari is a Full Professor and Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Cybersecurity at York University. He is the founder and director of the Behaviour-Centric Cybersecurity Center (BCCC) and co-founder of the Cybersecurity Cartoon Award (CSCA).

A Senior Member of IEEE, he also serves on the editorial boards of Computers & Security (Elsevier), Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio), and Computational Intelligence (Wiley). With 29 years of academic and industrial experience, Arash has authored 12 books and over 110 scholarly publications. His research focuses on behaviour-centric cybersecurity, AI-driven threat detection, network and encrypted traffic analysis, malware analysis, IoT and cyber-physical system security, blockchain and DeFi security, cybersecurity dataset generation, and trustworthy AI.

His current research aims to establish the scientific foundations of trustworthy, resilient, and secure AI for cybersecurity, enabling the next generation of Frontier AI systems that are reliable, explainable, adaptive, and operationally accountable in protecting critical digital infrastructure.

Jonathan Berkshire Miller is an internationally recognized expert in security, defence, and geo-economics, advising governments, multinational corporations, and international organizations on geopolitical issues and strategic decision-making. For nearly two decades, he has held senior roles across the private and public sectors, shaping policy and strategy on global economic and security challenges.

Jonathan has worked in senior executive roles at leading think-tanks in Canada, the United States, and Japan, contributing to high-level policy discussions on geopolitical and leading strategic dialogues. He has also served in the Canadian government, specializing in economic and security policy. He is a frequent keynote speaker for business, government and other stakeholder on geostrategic issues. 

A prolific writer and commentator, Jonathan contributes analysis to leading publications such as the Financial Times, the New York Times, CNN, Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal and many others.

Stephen Noakes is Associate Professor and Major & Specialization Leader in Politics and International Relations at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. A specialist in Chinese politics and foreign policy, his research examines the global dimensions of domestic institutional change, with a particular focus on the Indo-Pacific region. His articles have appeared in China Quarterly, The Pacific Review, Voluntas, Political Science Quarterly, Pacific Affairs, and elsewhere. Among his books are Democratization: A Thematic Approach (Bloomsbury 2023), Asia-Pacific Small States: Political Economies of Resilience (with Alexander C. Tan, Eds.), (Lynne Rienner 2023), and The Advocacy Trap: Transnational Activism and State Power in China (Manchester UP, 2017). 

Stephen was Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Auckland from 2021-25 and a MOFA Taiwan Fellow in 2019. He previously held Fellowships at Peking University, Fudan University, and the University of Toronto, and is a regular commentator on global China in international print and broadcast media. 

John H. McArthur Research Fellows (2025-2026)

Danielle Goldfarb is an advisor on real-time data, international trade, and public policy. She has written or co-written more than 75 policy papers, including Canada’s Under-the-Radar Trade Opportunity: Digital and AI-Enabled Trade. Danielle holds fellowships at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and the Canadian Standards Association. 

Her research will explore how technological advances are reshaping trade and what this means for Canada, as outlined in this framing paper. 

Pascale Massot is an associate professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Massot is also a non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy, at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in New York and a non-resident Fellow with the Centre for China Studies, National Taiwan University in Taipei. 

Her research will investigate how the evolving U.S.–China strategic rivalry is affecting critical minerals resilience in the Indo-Pacific and shaping Canada’s strategic positioning in the region.

Kati Suominen is Founder and CEO of Nextrade Group, which helps governments, multilateral development banks, and leading technology companies enable trade through technology. Dr. Suominen has ideated and built dozens of data and analytical products and pilot initiatives, as well as eight global initiatives and public-private partnerships to enable digital trade. She also serves as Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Adjunct Professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management, and as Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute. 

Her research will explore how AI is transforming global trade and how can Canada capitalize on emerging “trade in AI”.

Ari Van Assche is Full Professor of International Business at HEC Montréal and Co-Director of the International Institute of Economic Diplomacy. Dr. Van Assche serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Business Policy, Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute, and Director of the Economics Axis at CERIUM’s Chair of Asian and Indo-Pacific Studies. He is recognized globally for his expertise on the organization of global value chains and their implications for economic security, sustainability, and public policy.

His research will analyze critical chokepoints and vulnerabilities in Canada’s clean, critical, and manufacturing technology supply chains linked to the Indo-Pacific.

John H. McArthur Research Fellows (2024-2025)

Dr. Diana Fu is an Associate Professor at The University of Toronto in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and Political Science. She is a non-resident fellow at Brookings Institution, a China fellow at the Wilson Center, and a public intellectuals fellow at the National Committee on US-China Relations. Fu’s research examines civil society, popular contention, state control, and authoritarian citizenship in China. 

Dr. Erik Martinez Kuhonta is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. Born in Kandy, Sri Lanka, Kuhonta grew up in Rome, Italy, and is originally from the Philippines. His research is centred on comparative political development, state formation, democracy, political economy, religion, and comparative-historical analysis, with a regional focus on Southeast Asia. 

John H. McArthur Research Fellows (2022-2023)

Fiona Cunningham, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also a Faculty Fellow at Perry World House and affiliated with the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and the Browne Center for International Politics. Dr. Cunningham's research interests lie at the intersection of technology and conflict, with an empirical focus on China.

Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University; Non-Resident Senior Fellow at American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Mastro's research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia Pacific security issues, war termination, nuclear dynamics, and coercive diplomacy.

John H. McArthur Research Fellows (2021-2022)

Elina Noor, Director of Political-Security Affairs and Deputy Director, Washington, D.C. Office at the Asia Society Policy Institute. A native of Malaysia, Ms. Noor’s work focuses on security developments in Southeast Asia, global governance and technology, and preventing/countering violent extremism.

Tabitha Grace Mallory, Founder of China Ocean Institute and Affiliate Professor, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. Dr. Mallory specializes in Chinese foreign and environmental policy. She conducts research on China and global ocean governance and has published work on China’s fisheries and oceans policy.

About John H. McArthur

A uniquely accomplished Canadian and a native of Burnaby, British Columbia, John H. McArthur was the Dean of Harvard Business School from 1980 through 1995, Senior Advisor to the President of the World Bank from 1995 to 2005, a founding Board Member of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, and was Dean Emeritus at Harvard Business School before his death in August 2019. He sat on numerous boards, including Duke University Medical Center, KOC Holdings A.S. and Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company. Dr. McArthur was Chair of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada from 2006-2015.

Dr. McArthur earned a bachelor of commerce degree in forestry from the University of British Columbia in 1957. He continued his studies at Harvard, where he completed an MBA in 1959 and later earned a doctorate in business administration in 1963. In 2013 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, one of the country's highest civilian orders. Over his career, Dr. McArthur was awarded honorary doctorates from six different institutions in addition to multiple awards, most notably the Canadian Business Leadership Award, from the combined Harvard Clubs of Canada, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Corporate Directors in 2010.

Dr. McArthur's outstanding service and dedication to APF Canada prompted the establishment of the John H. McArthur Distinguished Fellowship. An avid proponent of collaborative communities, during his tenure as Chair, Dr. McArthur reached out to businesses, governments and academia to solidify the Foundation's position as a thought leader and agent of action in Canada's evolving relations with Asia.

John H. McArthur Distinguished Fellows (2017-2021)

2021 – Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist.

2019 – Michael R. Bloomberg, Founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and 108th Mayor of New York City.

2017 – Fareed Zakaria, Host of “Fareed Zakaria GPS” for CNN Worldwide, Journalist, and Bestselling Author.