Miguel Ilustre is a Master of Arts in Global Governance student at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. He graduated from the University of Waterloo in 2025 with a Bachelor of Arts in Honours Political Science, specializing in International Relations, and Honours Legal Studies. Through the University of Waterloo’s co-op program, Miguel has completed internships at the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s Non-Proliferation and Export Controls Division, where he supported Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) projects. These experiences sparked his interest in the strategic, legal, and informational dimensions of conflict and security.

As a MAGG student, Miguel is interested in critically engaging with the forces that shape global governance. Specifically, Miguel aims to interrogate global arms control regimes, the technologies and logics underpinning contemporary warfare, and the shifting architectures of global governance in an era of rising authoritarianism and technological acceleration. He is also interested in how narratives of stability, danger, and legitimacy are constructed through popular discourse and embedded in international institutions in ways that obscure and reproduce power dynamics.

Miguel is also interested in how security logics extend beyond the battlefield, shaping migration regimes, surveillance practices, and civil defense infrastructures. Through his work, he hopes to contribute to more reflexive and equitable approaches to global governance that reckon with both historical injustice and present-day asymmetries.