Debra Thompson

Director

Associate Professor of Political Science, McGill University

Debra Thompson is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Racial Inequality in Democratic Societies at McGill University. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto in 2010 and was awarded the Governor General of Canada's Academic Gold Medal in 2011.She also holds a Master of Arts in Legal Studies and a Bachelor of Public Affairs and Policy Management (Highest Honours) from Carleton University.  

Her research focuses on the comparative politics of race, with particular attention to the relationships among race, the state, and inequality in democratic societies. Her first book, The Schematic State: Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census (Cambridge University Press, 2016) won three major awards in political science. Her The Long Road Home: On Blackness and Belonging (Simon & Schuster, 2022) was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Prize for non-Fiction and weaves together personal memoir, history, and political science to paint a compelling picture of race in North America.