Robert Daum, PhD is Fellow and Lead in Diversity and Innovation at SFU’s Centre for Dialogue, who specializes in complexities of dialogue, collaboration, and community engagement across cultural, social, and disciplinary boundaries for public institutions. A Director of the Founding Board of Reconciliation Canada, he was Convenor of its inaugural National Reconciliation Gathering in 2016. He earned a B.A. in Political Science magna cum laude (Tufts University); an M.A. in Hebrew Literature and a Rabbinic Degree (HUC-JIR, New York); a PhD in Near Eastern Studies (University of California, Berkeley); a Certificate in Muslim Cultures (SFU & Aga Khan U); and was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by HUC-JIR in Los Angeles. An Honorary Associate Professor in UBC’s CNERS Department (2010-2016), he is Faculty Associate in UBC’s Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, and a Faculty Member of Green College’s Common Room at UBC.

He served as Co-convenor of the Intercultural & Civic Engagement Strategy Group for the City of Vancouver Immigration Partnership. A member of the Editorial Board of Directions, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation’s (CRRF) research and policy journal, he also led the CRRF’s 2016 “Youth Ambassadors” national initiative and was UBC Campus Lead for the CRRF’s 2016 “Canada Lecture: Campus,” the first national, inter-university dialogue on diversity and unity. A Collaborator in two current, UBC-led, interdisciplinary, SSHRC-funded research teams, he is also Co-lead of the “Cultural ‘Symbioses’ Project,” an international, inter-disciplinary research consortium of eight teams of 30+ researchers at 20+ universities in nine countries. He served as Advisor, Office of VP Students at UBC; Lead, UBC Student Diversity Dialogue; and Lead, UBC Transcultural Leaders.

He was a Member of the UBC President’s Task Group on Cultural and Religious Events and a member of the Sikh and Punjabi Studies Review Committee for the Department of Asia Studies and UBC’s Faculty of Arts. He was appointed as one of 12 delegates to the first formal, national, bilateral dialogue of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus. A former board member of various non-profit organizations, he has published his research in leading journals and has been a presenter, including keynotes, at leading academic conferences in Canada, China, France, Spain, Sweden, and the U.S.A.