S. Karly Kehoe

Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Communities and Professor of History, Saint Mary’s University; President, Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists

S. Karly Kehoe
Biography

S. Karly Kehoe is a recognized research leader at both the national and international levels and a strong voice for the young academy movement – which represents scholars around the world at the early and mid-career stages. Currently serving as president of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists, Dr. Kehoe previously served as co-chair of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland (2015-17) and was a twice-elected member of the executive committee of the Global Young Academy (2017-18 & 2018-19). She is a science diplomat who has co-founded major national and international programmes to support academic researchers displaced by war, conflict and/or persecution, and is a champion of research-led public engagement. In 2016, she cofounded the Young Academy of Scotland’s At-Risk and Refugee membership scheme; in 2017, she co-founded the Global Young Academy’s At-Risk Scholar Initiative; and in 2021, she founded – with the unanimous support of the membership – the At-Risk and Displaced Academics and Artists program of the Royal Society of Canada’s College. All these programmes prioritize inclusive excellence and aim to co-create support structures for and recognition of displaced academic research colleagues. She is also a member of the Science in Exile steering committee, which is a major initiative of Science International (a collaboration of UNESCO, the World Academy of Sciences, the International Science Council, and the InterAcademy Partnership). This is an important policy advice area to which she is well-positioned to make an immediate and significant contribution. She is a historian and the Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Communities who researches religious minority migration and migrant integration in the 18th and 19th centuries. As an advocate of interdisciplinary and transnational research partnerships, she has been awarded multiple research grants from a wide range of international and national funders as well as several visiting international research fellowships. This has resulted in numerous peer-reviewed publications with esteemed university presses and high-ranking journals. This research has enabled her to champion research-led public engagement through the coordination of several award-winning projects with school pupils in rural areas. All these projects use historical research as a way of helping young people see what the academic research process looks like and what their role in it might look like. She uses the local to help them understand the global. Her focus on young people and rural communities aligns directly with the core principle of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – leave no one behind.