Research Interests
Brian Ray is a social geographer who is interested in the diverse ways that urban people organize their everyday lives in multi-ethnic cities. For the most part, Brian’s work examines different aspects of immigrant integration in North American and European cities. Brian is a member of the Inter-University Research Centre of Montreal on Immigration, Integration, and Urban Dynamics (“Immigration et métropoles) and he is pursuing several research projects that relate to the social and economic integration of immigrants in Ottawa and Montréal. At the University of Ottawa, Brian is also a member of the Canadian Century Research Infrastructure team. Dr. Ray’s research projects have been funded by several different organizations including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, le Fonds pour la formation de chercheurs et l’Aide à la recherche (FCAR), and the Swiss Foundation BMU (Population, Migration and Environment).
Brian arrived at the University of Ottawa in July 2004 after several years in the United States where he worked in Washington (DC) at the Migration Policy Institute as a researcher/policy analyst examining immigrant integration and public policy. Previously, Dr. Ray was a senior analyst with the Metropolis Project and the Strategic Planning, Policy and Research Division (Department of Citizenship and Immigration), the Research Manager at the National Secretariat on Homelessness, and a professor at McGill University in Montréal.
Dr. Ray holds a PhD in social geography from Queen’s University (Kingston), a MA from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies degree from the University of Waterloo.
