Zoë Fortier

Zoë Fortier completed her Bachelor’s degree in International Studies at York University’s Glendon College, graduating with first class honours. In the final year of her program, she focused her Honours Thesis on the interactions between experiences of racialised womanhood and Canadian immigration policy, both through the selection or recruitment process and through entering the labour market in Canada. This research, in conjunction with several courses pursued during her Bachelor’s degree, has deepened an interest in often underacknowledged issues of gender, racialisation, sexuality and disability as they interplay with a broad range of topics in international relations and matters of human security.

In addition, Zoë worked extensively with Glendon College’s Model United Nations chapter over the course of her time at Glendon, beginning as a delegate and shortly after joining the executive team, first as a member of the Research and Debate team and later as Vice President and ultimately Co-President in her final semester. This work provided her with a keen awareness of a wide range of global issues and extended that awareness beyond an America- and Europe-centric focus commonly encountered, and further bolstered useful and fulfilling skills in leadership, teamwork, communication, and conflict resolution.

As a Canadian expatriate who lived most of her young life (from age 3 to 17) in the Netherlands and still has family ties there, her proximity to such organs as the International Criminal Court, the Peace Palace, and the NATO Communications and Intelligence Agency, among others, has significantly shaped not only her sensitivity to a broad spectrum of global issues and matters of human rights and conflict law, but also impressed upon her a keen awareness of her own identity as an international — and, in fact, multicontinental — citizen.

In her free time, Zoë enjoys reading and choral singing, and she is beginning to write what she hopes will result in a novel.