Madison Reid
Executive Director of Research and Policy, British Columbia Office of the Human Rights Commissioner
2022, 2025
Currently, Madison Reid is the Government of British Columbia’s Director of Collaborative Public Safety Programs. One of these programs includes Shift BC, an initiative aimed at addressing Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremism (IMVE) by adopting a public health lens, thereby empowering the high-calibre social services operating in British Columbia to tackle this interdisciplinary issue. Her previous roles include Senior Manager of Innovation at the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Adjunct Professor of the Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, and various program management roles in both the private and public sector. Madison also sits on the Canadian Federal Working Group on Countering Radicalization to Violence (CRV) and IMVE, as well as the British Columbian Provincial Anti-Hate and Anti-Racism Working Group and Civil Disobedience Working Group.
After her undergraduate degree (B.A. hons. Social Psychology), she went on to complete an M.Sc. in Nationalism Studies at the University of Edinburgh, where her research focused on the politics of sexual and gender-based violence in ethno-national conflict. Her other academic and professional research interests include anti-racism and anti-hate initiatives, the psychology of propaganda, and approaching the issue of societal polarization through the lens of social conformity. She has presented at various conferences including The Global Counterterrorism Forum as part of the Canadian Delegation, Shift’s Annual Practitioner’s Symposium, EU RAN’s Digital Study Visit to Canada, UNESCO-PREV’s Partnering in Practice: Preventing Social Polarizations Conference and UNESCO-PREV’s Prevention of Radicalization and Extremist Violence Workshop, Public Safety Canada’s Women in Terrorism & Counterterrorism, Harvard University & NATO Global Safety Evaluation Network International Workshop, CPN-PREV’s Violent Extremism Digital Mapping Project and Public Safety Canada’s Intervention Guidelines for Child Returnees Workshop, along others.
This cannot be thought of as a conference or a summit. The stakes are simply too high and the data/conversation and methods to drive action more valuable/motivating than any gathering I have attended. I took more than 100 pages of notes and have shared them with my CBS News leadership team, anchors, producers, and correspondents. Nothing about this gathering was easy. The agony around this topic is real. But no one curious about it could ask for a more devoted, rational, or unflinching look into this dark but decipherable world.
