Rich Janzen has worked at CCBR since 1996, becoming Research Director in 2004, Co-Executive Director in 2017, and Executive Director in 2021. Rich sees research as a tool for social innovation and change - to collaboratively find ways so that people with limited access to power and opportunity can live equitably within community. Rich has an academic background in community psychology and religious studies. He is an adjunct associate professor at Conrad Grebel University College and Renison University College both at the University of Waterloo. He is also part-time Associate Field Education Professor at the Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University.

Rich has been involved in many (over 145) community-based research and knowledge mobilization projects. These projects have focused on a range of issues including immigrants and refugee newcomers, community mental health, disabilities, family support, and faith and justice. This breadth of work has involved multi-partner research initiatives, program and systems change evaluation, and needs assessment with direct policy impact. He is author of over 45 academic publications, over 185 technical research reports, and presenter at over 80 conferences.

Rich is a community facilitator and mobilizer. He regularly supports community groups in better understanding their pressing issues and in developing focused strategies to address them. The workshops and community events that he facilitates stress the importance of collaboration for collective impact. Increasingly he is being asked to coach and train academic audiences about how how to effectively engage community groups in research and action.

Rich has visited over 40 countries around the world and previously worked as a cross-cultural social planner in Toronto. He now lives with his family in Waterloo, Ontario. He has self-published two family history books.

Rich's complete CV can be found here.