The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada is pleased to announce its four John H. McArthur Research Fellowship recipients for 2025-2026: Danielle Goldfarb, advisor on real-time data, international trade, and public policy; Pascale Massot, Associate Professor, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa; Kati Suominen, Founder and CEO of Nextrade Group; and, Ari Van Assche, Professor, International Business, HEC Montréal.
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 powers 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.
In honour of John H. McArthur, a long-time Canadian dean at Harvard Business School and former APF Canada Board Chair, the John H. McArthur Research Fellowship was launched in 2021 to support exceptional scholars working on programs and research areas with direct relevance to Canada and Canada’s interests in Asia.
The 2025-2026 Research Fellows are:
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. She is also a Distinguished Fellow with APF Canada.
Danielle was previously strategic advisor on public policy to Mila–Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, a global fellow at the Wilson Center Canada Institute, VP and research director at RIWI, and led trade research programs at the C.D. Howe Institute and the Conference Board of Canada. Danielle holds a master’s in international relations from Cambridge and an honours economics degree from McGill.
Pascale Massot is an associate professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She 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. She is also a Senior Fellow (Non-resident) with APF Canada.
Dr. Massot is the author of China’s Vulnerability Paradox: How the World’s Largest Consumer Transformed Global Commodity Markets (Oxford University Press, 2024) – Winner of the 2025 Best Book Award in International Political Economy from the International Studies Association and the 2025 Peter Katzenstein Book Prize.
In 2022, Pascale was a member of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs’ Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee. She also served as the Senior Advisor for China and Asia in the offices of various Canadian cabinet ministers, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, at different points between 2015 and 2021.
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.
Dr. Suominen also served as Trade Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank and Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is the author and editor of over 120 papers and 10 peer-reviewed books on trade, globalization, and technology with leading academic presses, most recently Revolutionizing World Trade: How Disruptive Technologies Open Opportunities for All (Stanford University Press, 2019). She is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Ari Van Assche is Full Professor of International Business at HEC Montréal and Co-Director of the International Institute of Economic Diplomacy. He 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.
Holding an M.Sc. in Sinology from KU Leuven and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Ari’s work bridges economics, international business, and public policy. He is recognized globally for his expertise on the organization of global value chains and their implications for economic security, sustainability, and public policy.
The John H. McArthur Fellowship initiative and fund, which supports the Research Fellowship program, was established by APF Canada to honour Dr. McArthur, who died in 2019. He was a native of Burnaby, British Columbia, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and Dean Emeritus at Harvard Business School.
For more information about this research fellowship program, please email info@asiapacific.ca
