Anya Johnson Poon is a Master of Global Governance candidate and Graduate Research Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She holds a Bachelor of Public Affairs and Policy Management with a Specialization in Development Studies from Carleton University. Her academic interests include: social policy, migration and mobilities, international development, international political economy, medical anthropology, the politics of reproduction and queer and gender studies. Her research interests in medical anthropology and gender studies led her to write her undergraduate thesis, The ART of Reproduction: Analyzing the nexus of queer reproduction and reproductive travel, which problematizes the heteronormativity that informs international regulation of assisted reproductive technology through an examination of regulatory barriers to parenthood for queer couples wishing to have biological children.

While completing her MA in Global Governance, Anya will continue working on the subject of queer reproduction, and will also be assisting Dr. Alana Cattapan’s work in her role as the Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Reproduction. Anya will be working on the Ova Obscura Project, the first large scale study of egg donation in Canada aiming to work with egg donors to improve relevant law and public policy.

Outside of academia, Anya is dedicated to travel and opportunities to live in new places with different languages and ways of life. She considers experiential learning to be of equal importance to academic learning, and believes that diverse experiences of language and culture offer her the opportunity to better ground her theoretical perspectives, contextualize and personally connect with global issues.