Senior Associate, Strategy, Culture, and Behavior
Dr. Robert Barrett has spent much of his life studying conflict behavior and is the recipient of fifteen major academic awards. Rob’s primary focus is on group dynamics, culture, strategy, and communication, with a particular interest in evolution and neuroscience as they pertain to contemporary war and society.
Rob’s experiences are truly diverse. He has traveled to rural Nigeria to interview recruiters and leaders of death squads on how they indoctrinate fighters, has helped build Canada’s first ever Patient Safety Officer program for hospitals, was on the committee that introduced the first Operating Room Checklist to Canada, was core faculty for the Canadian Patient Safety Institute’s incidence response team, helped develop new fatigue countermeasures for the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, and was a co-lead researcher on intercultural operations for the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada.
Rob has lectured on intercultural negotiation for senior NATO officers deploying to Afghanistan and was lead on a unique program designed to investigate ways to mitigate astronaut crew conflict in space for future Mars missions. He has worked extensively on organizational conflict and team culture, presenting at aerospace medicine conferences as well as at post-graduate medical education events. Recently, Rob was lead researcher on two Province of Alberta funded projects measuring behavioral safety and culture across various industries, and his work on team culture within the Internal Medicine residency program in Calgary won the University of Calgary’s annual award for medical innovation.
Rob’s work on motivation and team dynamics is also supported by 13 years as an elite athlete. In addition to these pursuits, Rob has worked extensively on human factors and on airline crew resource management programs and team culture and is a Boeing 777 Captain. Rob has written for the Huffington Post, has appeared more than 50 times on national television and radio, is a frequent university guest lecturer on leadership and performance, and is a popular international keynote speaker. Rob has a PhD from the Centre for Military, Security, and Strategic Studies (Calgary) and has a Canadian Defence Department sponsored post-doctorate in counterinsurgency (Calgary).
Rob’s recent book is called HARDWIRED: How Our Instincts to Be Healthy Are Making Us Sick (published by Springer, 2020).