Adjunct Professor of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and Immediate Past President of the ‘National Academy of Arbitrators’

Allen Ponak is a Canadian national who has been arbitrating and mediating labour and employment disputes since 1985. He is a listed arbitrator in national and regional collective agreements and was part time vice-chair of the federal Public Service Labour Relations Board from 2008 to 2012. In 1992, Dr. Ponak was admitted to the National Academy of Arbitrators and has served on its Board of Governors, as vice president, and as chair of the Canadian region. He is currently president of the NAA’s Research and Education Foundation. In October 2013 he was nominated as NAA president, a position he will assume in May 2015.

Until June 2006, Dr. Ponak was a professor of industrial relations at the University of Calgary and the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and textbooks on union-management relations. He now holds professor emeritus status in that institution and in 2010 he became an adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan where he teaches a course in labour and employment arbitration to business and law students. He was president of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association in 1990 and is chair of the editorial board of the journal Relations industrielles. In 2006, his film “Beyond Collision: High Integrity Labour Relations” won the Silver Screen Award at the Los Angeles International Film and Video Festival. He has a B.A. from McGill University, a Master’s from Michigan State University, and a Ph.D. in industrial relations from the University of Wisconsin (Madison).