Jean-Sébastien Rioux

Dr. Jean-Sébastien (J-S) Rioux hails from Québec City and lived and studied in the U.S. from 1985 to 1996, where he earned a PhD in International Relations. He taught at McGill and Concordia Universities before being awarded a Canada Research Chair and joining the Political Science Department at Université Laval from 2001 to 2006.

From February 2006 to August 2008, he was the late Jim Prentice’s Chief of Staff in Ottawa. He and Mr. Prentice were good friends and continued working together in the ensuing years, including helping Mr. Prentice’s successful run to become the 16th Premier of Alberta in 2014. Later, J-S and Mr. Prentice collaborated on the national bestselling book, Triple Crown: Winning Canada’s Energy Future (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2017).

J-S Rioux moved to Calgary in 2008 and after almost 4 years working at one of Canada’s largest energy companies as the lead Government Relations & Issues Management practitioner, joined The School of Public Policy in September 2012. Among the courses he teaches, J-S is co-founder and lead instructor of the Calgary-Québec Summer School on the Geopolitics of Energy and Natural Resources, an annual national graduate-level course focussing on the important energy and natural resource policy issues of the day. He is married to Zoë Kolbuc and they have three young daughters.