Christopher Sands

Midwestern U.S.-Canadian Relations

Christopher Sands accepted a federal appointment in 2020 as the third director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. — the largest research program on Canadian political and economic affairs outside of Canada. The Wilson Center is a congressionally chartered, scholarship driven and rigorously bipartisan research center within the Smithsonian Institution. The mission of the Canada Institute is to raise the baseline level of knowledge about Canada through research on contemporary Canada, U.S.-Canadian relations, the North American political economy, and Canadian foreign policy as it relates to U.S. national interests. In 2024, Sands marks 31 years at leading U.S. think tanks, having previously directed Canadian research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Hudson Institute. He is an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and directs the Hopkins Center for Canadian Studies, which was founded in 1960 by the late Canadian Nobel Laureate in Economics Robert Mundell. Sands previously taught in the College of Business and Economics at Western Washington University, and the School of Public Affairs at American University. Sands earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Macalester College, and a master’s degree in international economics and a Ph.D. in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. He was a Fulbright visiting scholar at Carleton University in Ottawa. Although frequently mistaken as Canadian, he was born and raised in Detroit.