Dr. Geoffrey Bird is a Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Royal Roads University, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He also serves as the Academic Lead for the Canadian Armed Forces Student Experience at RRU. Joining RRU in 2008, Geoff has taught a range of courses related to subjects such as communication and media theory including digital media studies, cultural memory, heritage, remembrance, memorialization, globalization, ethics and cultural tourism. Geoff received the Kelly Outstanding Teaching Award in 2024.
He has held a range of administrative positions including School Director and Program Head and has experience developing undergraduate and graduate programs and courses. Geoff is also the creator and project lead of the War Heritage Research Initiative, producing 35 short and long documentaries that have been shown on regional television and at venues across Canada and overseas. He has also written several articles and edited books including co-authoring Architecture of memorialisation: the Spitfire and the making of a memorial icon. In 2026, his collaboration on the film project Story Pole: Indigenous Veterans the Tallest Pole in the World led to a Heritage Hallmark Award.
Geoff's doctorate examined the relationship between remembrance, landscape and tourism, focusing on the D-Day area of Normandy. His past research and consulting also included poverty alleviation, sustainability, tourism community planning and education design. Geoff is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria.
Experience
Geoffrey Bird has over 35 years of experience in post-secondary education. He has held various positions with the provincial and federal governments, as an entrepreneur, as a consultant, and as a naval officer. He has led major projects for tourism human resource development in provinces across Canada and the Caribbean.
For six years, he created and led a community-based poverty alleviation project in the Sapa region of Vietnam. He has led various groups on field study in Vietnam and in Europe, establishing expertise in experiential learning. An important experience early in his life was working as a heritage interpreter at the Canadian National Memorial at Vimy Ridge, France.
Geoff has lived and worked in Southeast Asia, Europe and across Canada. Funding and research partnerships have included regiments of the Canadian Armed Forces, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Parks Canada and Veterans’ Affairs, Heritage BC, Heritage Canada and private donors.
Education
2011
PhD in Anthropology
University of Brighton, UK
1998
Master of Science (MSc) in Training
University of Leicester, UK
1990
Honour’s Bachelor of Arts, International Development (African Studies), with Honour's Minor in French Literature
University of Guelph, Ontario
Publications
Virtual Exhibit: A moral awakening. Uranium mining, the Manhattan Project and the Sahtu Deline NWT. Documentary. http://moralawakening.ca (2020).
Legacy of Canada’s Role in Atomic Bomb is Felt by Northern Indigenous Community. The Conversation. Republished 9 times. (August, 2020).
Globalization and Tourism. In Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality in BC. With E. Thomlinson (2020).
Canada’s dream shall be of them: Canadian epitaphs of the Great War. Book Review. First World War Studies, (Nov, 2020), https://doi.org/10.1080/19475020.2020.1848005
Home front in focus. In Canada’s History, June-July 2019, p.17.
Remembering well? Canada and the Great War centenary. For 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Free University of Berlin (2019).
A matter of life and death: Tourism as sensual remembrance. In Tourism and embodiment, pp. 116-131. Abingdon: Routledge. With Leighton, H., & McLean, A. (2019).
- War memories across Canada. Episode 3 (2019).Documentary writer, director and producer
Finding the Passion: Toward a unified vision for BC's tourism industry. Discussion paper based on the ‘Original Leaders 2.0’ Forum, 2017. With Thomlinson, E. (2018).
Heritage and Royal Roads University: Supporting the mandate and fostering our identity. (2018).
Voicing Contested Histories. Creating opportunities to foster diversity, inclusion and reconciliation. Final report (2018).
Marketing dark heritage: Building brands, myth-making and social marketing. In Stone, P.R., Hartmann, R., Seaton., T., Sharpley, R,. & White, L. (Eds) The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies. London: Palgrave Macmillian, pp.646-665. With Westcott, M., & Thiesen, N. (2018).
Commonwealth War Memory Pilot Project North America: Assessment. Funded by Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Valour Canada. With Charlebois, K. (2017).
War Memories across Canada. Sites of the First and Second World War. Documentary: writer, director and producer (2016). Two episodes, 27 vignettes bilingual, with education conversation kits. Canadian Heritage Commemoration Fund, Government of Canada, and Parks Canada. http://warheritage.royalroads.ca.
