David Dewitt joined CIGI as vice president of programs in July 2011, and oversees the strategy and implementation of all the organization's work programs and research-related activities, including the CIGI Campus Library. He is on an extended leave of absence from York University, Toronto where he currently holds the position of University Professor. He was associate vice-president of research, social sciences and humanities, professor of political science, and from 1988 through 2006 served as director of York’s Centre for International and Security Studies.

David earned a B.A. at the University of British Columbia and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. He has published on Canadian foreign, security, and defence policy, international and regional security and conflict management in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, arms control and proliferation, and human security.

In the 1990s he co-directed the North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue, a Foreign Affairs-sponsored Track Two Diplomacy initiative, and has been involved in various track two initiatives on security in the Asia Pacific and in the Middle East. He has led a number of policy focused research NGOs that have dealt with security and governance issues in these two regions and currently serves as chair of the advisory board, Partnerships for International Strategies in Asia (PISA) based in Washington, DC. He has been a visiting scholar at The Dayan Center for Middle East and Africa Studies, Tel-Aviv University and an international research fellow at the Korean Institute for Defense Analysis.