Iwaniuk was born in
Toronto,
Ontario, Canada and grew up in
Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada. He went to the
University of Alberta but decided not to stay there, instead he went to
Monash University in
Melbourne,
Australia to complete his
Honours degree with
John E. Nelson. Later on he returned to Canada to get his master's degree from the
University of Lethbridge with
Ian Q. Whishaw and
Sergio M. Pellis. For his Ph.D., he returned to Australia where he focused his study into the evolution of the bird brain, especially
parrots and began development of a large comparative brain collection. Following the completion of his Ph.D., he worked as a
post-doc with
Douglas Wong-Wylie at the University of Alberta which focus was on the study of
neuroanatomy and
neurochemistry of birds. He briefly worked as a fellow at the
National Museum of Natural History at
Washington, D.C. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the
University of Lethbridge working with
grouse,
ground squirrels and broad, comparative studies of avian brain anatomy. ==Papers==