BIOGRAPHY
Linda Cardinal has been a professor at the Université de l’Ontario français since 2021. She is also Professor Emeritus at the School of Political Studies of the University of Ottawa, where she held the Research Chair on Francophonie and Public Policy from 2004 to 2019. In 2020, she became Regional Director for the Americas at the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie. In this capacity, she worked to promote the international Francophonie and French language throughout the Americas.
Linda Cardinal is internationally recognized for her work on comparative language regimes, language policy, constitutionalism, citizenship, and minority public policy, particularly pertaining to Canada and Europe. She has published on these issues in leading academic journals, including Politique et sociétés, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the Revue internationale de politique comparée, Minorités linguistiques et société, and Recherches sociographiques.
Her most recent work includes the special issue of the journal Enjeux et sociétés on the theme "Rooting a New University in the 21st Century" (with Jason Luckerhoff and Marc Johnson, 2021); "Minority Group and Women's Representation in the Canadian Senate Since 1867" (in Canadian Federalism and Its Future: Actors and Institutions, Alain-G. Gagnon and Johanne Poirier (eds.), McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020); "Ethnocultural and Linguistic Diversity: New Challenges to Canada's Language Regime" (with Rémi Léger, in Thomas Ricento (ed.), "Language Policies in Canada and in the United States" (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Une tradition et un droit : le Sénat et la représentation de la francophonie canadienne (with Sébastien Grammond, UOP, 2017).
As a dedicated thesis advisor, she has helped train generations of students, some of whom have gone on to become academics, public servants, and community leaders in Canada and abroad. Linda Cardinal is also an active academic in her community. From 2016 to 2019, she served as a University Colleague on the Council of Ontario Universities. From 2017 to 2019, she edited the journal World Political Science. She also serves on the editorial boards of the journals Enjeux et Sociétés, the Revue internationale des francophonies, and Language Problems and Language Planning. From 2018 to 2021, she served on the Board of Governors of the Law Commission of Ontario. From 2014 to 2016, she was Vice President of the International Political Science Association.
In 2013, Linda Cardinal was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2014, she was made a Chevalière dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiques de la République française. In 2017, she was appointed to the Order of Canada for her research on public policy and language rights. In 2020, she was awarded the Ordre de la Pléiade of the Assemblée parlementaire de la francophonie, Ontario chapter. In 2021, she was recognized as one of the ten most influential personalities of the Canadian Francophonie. That same year she was also awarded the Ordre des francophones d'Amérique.