Organizers

Dr. Ugurhan Berkok

Ugurhan G. Berkok is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Royal Military College of Canada and an Adjunct  Professor at Queen’s University's Economics department. His previous positions were at Laval, McGill, Montréal, UQAM, Concordia and Sussex. 

His current teaching interests include defence and national security economics, health economics, and political economy. His current research interests include defence procurement offsets banking and trading, defence industrial policy outsourcing and PPPs, defence force generation, intelligence agency structure and incentives, and deterrence.

Dr. Ryan Compton

Ryan Compton is a Professor of Economics at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and holds a PhD in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis.  He has held guest and visiting appointments at the Central Bank of Brazil, University of Western Ontario, National Economics University (Vietnam), and Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg (Germany). Prior to academia he worked in the Canadian government, including positions in the Accelerated Economist Program as well as Finance Canada.

His research spans macroeconomics, development, institutions, defence, and conflict. His work on defence and conflict focuses on the causes and consequences of conflict, as well as Canadian defence policy.  Recent publications have appeared in Economic Modelling, Defence & Peace Economics, Journal of Economics, Race, & Policy, and the Southern Economic Journal. He currently serves on the executive of the Canadian Development Economics Study Group, as well as the editorial boards of Defence & Peace Economics and the Journal of Economics, Race, & Policy.

Dr. Elise Critoph

Elise is a limited-term Assistant Professor at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec and holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Ottawa. She has previously served as a replacement Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa and during her PhD, as a contract instructor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. 

Elise’s research focuses on conflict economics, using game theoretic tools and incorporating elements from psychology. She studies how emotions affect conflict engagement and the intensity of fighting in models of conflict. She has been teaching a course on conflict economics for the past 5 years. In her professional experience, Elise has served as a subject matter expert in behavioural insights and supported the design and analysis of behavioural economics-related experiments.

Dr. Dane Rowlands

Dane Rowlands is a Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA, Carleton University) where he has been teaching since earning a Ph.D in economics from the University of Toronto. He served as Associate Director of the School (2002-2012) and Director (2012-2017), and as Co-Director (2009-2020) and Director (2020-2022) of the Infrastructure Protection and International Security program at Carleton. In addition to international finance and public finance, he has been teaching a course on the economic analysis of conflict since 2003. 

His research areas include development, international finance and the IMF, migration, and conflict intervention and peacekeeping, appearing in journals such as Defence and Peace Economics, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and World Development. He is Treasurer of the Canadian Development Economics Study Group, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Transportation Security.

Dr. Oana Secrieru

Oana Secrieru is an Associate Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada. She holds a PhD in Economics from Queen’s University in Kingston. She previously worked as a senior analyst at the Bank of Canada. 

Her research interests are in the areas of defence economics (game theory and conflict), industrial organization (mergers, vertical restraints, venture capital and entrepreneurship), public economics (small business taxation and corporate taxation), and international trade (MNEs and FDI).

Dr. Karl Skogstad

Dr. Karl Skogstad is an Associate Professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.  He holds a PhD in Economics from Queen's University in Kingston where he wrote his thesis on the subject of defence budgets.  His works in this area can be found in Defence and Peace Economics and the European Review of Economic History.  He has also provided consultation for Canada's Department of National Defence and Industry Canada on the subject of procurement.  

Dr. Nahleen Zahra

Nahleen Zahra is a Defence Scientist at the Centre for Operational Research and Analysis, Department of National Defence. She holds a Master’s degree in Economics from McGill University and a PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Her research interests include defence economics, health economics and public finance. Prior to working at DND, she worked at the Innovation, Science and Technology Division at Statistics Canada. Her research has appeared in Tobacco Control and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.