Michael Petrou has been Editor-in-Chief of Open Canada since October 2020.
Michael Petrou has a background as a historian and journalist. He was a fellow-in-residence in Carleton University’s Bachelor of Global and International Studies program, where he teaches a course on democracy and political freedom in the Middle East. He is also an adjunct research professor in the Department of History.
In 2017-18, Petrou was the Martin Wise Goodman Canadian Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He is a longtime foreign correspondent who has reported from across the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia. He won the 2017 R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship, which he used to report on Syrian refugees in the Middle East. Petrou has won three National Magazine Awards and been shortlisted for six more. Petrou’s book, Is This Your First War? Travels Through the Post-9/11 Islamic World, won the Ottawa Book Award. He is also the author of Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War. He has a doctorate in modern history from the University of Oxford, which he attended as a Chevening Scholar.
Email: michael@thecic.org