Paul Brienza teaches at York University in the departments of Human Rights and Equity Studies and the School of Public Policy and Administration. He has an extensive teaching experience at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and is the recipient of several teaching awards.

Dr. Brienza attained his PhD in Sociology with thesis on the topic of Law and Social Theory and its relation to the work of the Italian jurisprudential thinker Giambattista Vico. This work was subsequently published as The Structure of Legal Communication: Vico and the Social Theory of Law in 2013 by Mellen Press. In addition, he has been a regular review editor for the Journal of Classical Sociology (on the topics of Simmel and interaction theory, the growth of the American Sociology of Religion, and the influence of Alfred Schutz), the International Journal of Philosophy as well as for numerous publishers included Bloomsbury Academic, SUNY Press, and University of Toronto Press. He has also presented at numerous academic and policy related conferences on diverse topics including Human Rights and Economics Rights, the History and Context of Empire, Phenomenology and Ethics, Law and Social Policy, and Community Policing. Further, he has published in numerous journals and is presently in the process of working on a text for Bloomsbury Academic titled The History and Theory of Human Rights. His areas of expertise include Human Rights, Law and Social Policy, and Social Theory.

Dr. Brienza has also participated actively in several community organizations such as Vitanova (dealing with services for those facing addictions challenges) and neighbor organizations, working at the grass-roots level, endeavoring to work with the police. He has been involved with several research projects that have sought to fundamentally and critically alter the mandate of policing by integrating the community as active governance actors. In addition, he has been an innovator in regard to integrating this community-based experience into a model that is actively brought into the classroom. He brings this diverse experience to the classroom by encouraging a technologically integrative and innovative environment.