Roopa Desai Trilokekar is Associate Professor (Post-Secondary Education) in the Faculty of Education, York University. She comes to an academic career after 20 years of experience as a professional in the field of international education in Canada, India and the U.S. Her research interests are focused on government policy in the internationalization of Canadian higher education, student experiential learning through international education and internationalizing pre-service teacher education. 

She has co-edited thee volumes, International Education as Public Policy in Canada under contract withMcGill-Queen’s University Press Making Policy in Turbulent Times; Challenge and Prospects for Higher Educationand Canada’s Universities Go Globaland has published over 30 book chapters and journal articles. 

Her 2020 co-edited book International Education as Public Policy in Canada, along with Tamtik, M (Manitoba) and Jones, G. A (Toronto) was awarded the Catalyst Award by the Canadian Bureau of International Education for bringing cutting‐edge knowledge to the field of international education and made it to The Hill Times’ List of 100 Best Books in 2020. 

Her most recent research looks at a discourse analysis of the ‘International Students as ideal immigrants’ global policy discourse across Australia, Germany and Canada, funded by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She has successfully completing two other SSHRC funded studies, one titled, China, India and the challenge to Canada's ‘Diplomacy of Knowledge’: A comparative study of the internationalization of higher educationand the other Making Policy in Postsecondary Education.

She is recognized as an expert on Canadian federal policy on international education, and her contributions to international higher education include examining the changing relationship between the state, foreign policy and education through critical comparative policy studies. Her current work is focused on international education as a soft power/public diplomacy tool in context of shifting/new geopolitics. She has been selected for a Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California (2020-2021 academic year) for her project titled, International Education as Soft Power: Its relevance in a world of changing U.S.-Canada relations and new geopolitics. 

In 2020, she was invited to serve on the Royal Society of Canada's COVID-19 Working Group on the Future of Higher Education