Jennifer Bond holds degrees in law, literature, and business and has been called to the Bars of Ontario and British Columbia. She completed her graduate work at the Yale Law School as a John Peters Humphrey Fellow in International Human Rights Law and clerked at the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Professor Bond is an academic, social entrepreneur, and leading global expert on the political, policy and operational dimensions of legal pathways for refugees and vulnerable migrants. She has helped inspire, design, and launch protection pathways and community sponsorship programs in over 20 countries.
She currently leads the University of Ottawa Refugee Hub and Pathways International, chairs the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative (GRSI), co-leads the inaugural secretariat of the Resettlement Diplomacy Network (RDN), and sits on the boards of Talent Beyond Boundaries and Airbnb.org. She is also an advisor to governments, international organizations, and civil society and private sector leaders around the world.
Professor Bond has significant experience leading teams; building nimble, high-impact programming; and managing successful multi-sectoral partnerships at national and global levels. She has helped conceive and launch each of the Refugee Hub’s flagship initiatives, including the University of Ottawa Refugee Assistance Project (UORAP), the Refugee Law Research Team (RLRT), the uOttawa Refugee Sponsorship Support Program (SSP), the Canadian Cross-Border Legal Coalition (CCBLC), and the uOttawa Refugee Hub Fellowships for Refugee Leaders.
Professor Bond also has experience leading ambitious research initiatives. She has served as Principal Investigator on two major SSHRC-funded projects, including a multi-year research project that leveraged the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Program and brought together a consortium of 9 partners, including universities, think tanks, and civil society partners from across Europe. She was also a co-investigator for the Canadian Partnership for International Justice, a pan-Canadian partnership that brought together a team of 25 researchers and practitioners from 12 organizations to strengthen access to justice for victims of international crimes.
She has sat on the founding national executive of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers(CARL), made submissions before the Supreme Court of Canada and testified at Senate Committees, served with the UNHCR in Syria, and worked at a major law firm. She haspublished in leading peer-review journals; provided expert commentary for over 75 national and international media stories; and delivered workshops and presentations in over 15 countries.
In 2015/16, Professor Bond served on a full-time basis as Special Advisor to Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship on Canada’s Syrian Refugee Initiative, a project which engaged over two million Canadians and brought over 40,000 refugees to Canada in under four months.
Professor Bond has been awarded the International Commission of Jurists’ Tarnopolsky Award and appointed to the Order of Ontario in recognition of her national and international contributions to refugee protection.