Michael joins NCAP after a distinguished career as a Professor and Director of Training in the Graduate Program in Child Clinical Psychology at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario. He codirected the National Adoption Study of Canada, and has published – previously as Michael Sobol – on such diverse topics as search and reunion, family and personal identity, adoption demographics, and paths to open facilitation. He received the David Kirk Award for outstanding contributions to research in adoption and has been a board member of the Adoption Councils of Ontario and Canada. As a founding member of the coordinating committee of the Coalition for Open Adoption Records, he works for access to identifying information for all.

In addition to his work with NCAP, Dr. Grand has a private practice serving the adoption constellation and is frequently called upon to offer workshops and lectures across North America on all aspects of adoption. He obtained his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His most-recent book, “The Adoption Constellation: New Ways of Thinking About and Practicing Adoption,” offers a compassionate understanding to all members of the adoption constellation. As a passionate advocate for openness, he explores the psychological costs of denying identifying information to adopted individuals and their birth kin. The book concludes with a consideration of alternative permanency arrangements and a primer for opening closed adoption records.