Program Director

Katrina is the Program Director at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) where she oversees the organization’s gender- and age-sensitive peacebuilding programs in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, and the Arab world. She has been with GNWP in various capacities since 2014. 

She has served as a technical expert to national and local governments developing policies on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and Youth, Peace and Security (YPS), including in Canada, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Lebanon, Nepal, and Rwanda. In 2022, Katrina led the development of Chad’s first National Action Plan on WPS.

Katrina is a multi-award-winning peacebuilder and published author. She has published 30+ academic and policy articles, analyses, toolkits, and book chapters. She has been a specialist for Global Affairs Canada, UN Women, and several advocacy-oriented nonprofits advising on communications, government relations, and policy development.

At home, Katrina serves as the Government Advocacy Chair of the Canadian Coalition for Youth, Peace & Security (CCYPS) and sits on the board of the Women, Peace and Security Network – Canada (WPSN-C). Most recently, she chaired the WPS Dialogues FPS (wps-dialogue-fps.ca) process, to ensure the strong representation of civil society perspectives in Canada’s third National Action Plan on WPS. Katrina also spent several years at the Senate of Canada, as Parliamentary Affairs Advisor to a Senator, during that time Katrina launched the Senator’s nationwide youth advisory which supported policies focused on meaningful youth engagement within the Parliament of Canada and in federal legislation. Highlights from her time at the Senate also include spearheading parliamentary advocacy for the creation of the diplomatic Office of the WPS Ambassador; coordinating amendments in legislation to eliminate sex-based discrimination against Indigenous women in Canadian law; leading research for Canada’s recognition of the Rohingya crisis as genocide and policy advocacy for the Canadian Government to intervene in the case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice; and, managing the secretariat for the Canadian Association of Feminist Parliamentarians.

Katrina is a Ph.D. candidate in conflict studies at Saint-Paul University. She holds a master’s in peace and conflict from the University of Manitoba and a bachelor’s in human rights and conflict resolution from the University of Winnipeg. Her academic research focuses on the synergies between the WPS and YPS agendas, and local peacebuilding approaches.

katrina@gnwp.org