List of McGill University people

McGill University's coat of arms

The following is a list of chancellors, principals, and noted alumni and professors of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

List of chancellors

  1. Charles Dewey Day (1864–1884)[1]
  2. James Ferrier (1884–1888)[1]
  3. Sir Donald Alexander Smith, Lord Strathcona (1889–1914)[1]
  4. Sir William Christopher Macdonald (1914–1917)[1]
  5. Sir Robert Laird Borden (1918–1920)[1]
  6. Sir Edward Wentworth Beatty (1921–1942)[1]
  7. Morris Watson Wilson (1943–1946)[1]
  8. Orville Sievwright Tyndale (BA 1908, MA 1909, BCL 1915) (1946–1952)[1]
  9. Bertie Charles Gardner (1952–1957)[1]
  10. Ray Edwin Powell (1957–1964)[1]
  11. Howard Irwin Ross (BA 1930) (1964–1970)[1]
  12. Donald Olding Hebb (MA, 1932) (1970–1974)[1]
  13. Stuart Milner Finlayson (1975)[1]
  14. Conrad Fetherstonhaugh Harrington (BA 1933, BCL 1936) (1976–1984)[1]
  15. A. Jean de Grandpré (BCL 1943) (1984–1991)[1]
  16. Gretta Chambers (BA 1947) (1991–1999)[2]
  17. Richard W. Pound (BCom 1962, LAcc 1964, BCL 1967) (1999–2009)[3]
  18. H. Arnold Steinberg (BCom 1954) (2009–2014)
  19. Michael A. Meighen (BA 1960) (2014–2021)
  20. John McCall MacBain (2021–2024)
  21. Pierre Boivin (2024–)

List of principals/president

  1. George Jehoshaphat Mountain (1824–1835)[4]
  2. John Bethune (1835–1846)[4]
  3. Edmund Allen Meredith (1846–1853)[4]
  4. Sir John William Dawson (1855–1893)[4]
  5. Sir William Peterson (1895–1919)[4]
  6. Sir Auckland Campbell Geddes (1919–1920)[4]
  7. General Sir Arthur Currie (1920–1933)[4]
  8. Arthur Eustace Morgan (1935–1937)[4]
  9. Lewis Williams Douglas (1938–1939)[4]
  10. Frank Cyril James (1939–1962)[4]
  11. Harold Rocke Robertson (BSc 1932, MD 1936) (1962–1970)[4]
  12. Robert Edward Bell (PhD 1948) (1970–1979)[4]
  13. David Lloyd Johnston (1979–1994)[4]
  14. Bernard Shapiro (BA, 1956) (1994–2002)[4]
  15. Heather Munroe-Blum (2003–2013)[5]
  16. Suzanne Fortier (BSc 1972, PhD 1976) (2013–2022)
  17. H. Deep Saini (2023–present)[6]

Noted alumni and professors

Sir John Abbott, 3rd Prime Minister of Canada
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 7th Prime Minister of Canada
Justin Trudeau, 23rd and current Prime Minister of Canada
Julie Payette, astronaut and former Governor-General of Canada
Timothy Harris, current Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis
Daniel Oduber Quirós, 37th President of Costa Rica
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, 6th and first female President of Latvia
Ahmed Nazif, 48th Prime Minister of Egypt
Paula Ann Cox, 10th Prime Minister of Bermuda
John Rankin, former Governor-General of Bermuda, the 143rd
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, neuroscientist and 11th President of Stanford University
Stephen Toope, legal scholar and current President of the University of Cambridge
Wendy Thomson, social work professor and current President of the University of London
Santa J. Ono, immunologist, 28th President of the University of Cincinnati, 15th President of the University of Michigan; 15th President & Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia
Harold Tafler Shapiro, former President of both Princeton University and the University of Michigan
Suzanne Fortier, crystallographer and former Principal of McGill University
S. I. Hayakawa, internationally renowned linguist, served as U.S. Senator and President of San Francisco State University
Mortimer Zuckerman, owner-publisher of U.S. News & World Report and New York Daily News, founder-CEO of Boston Properties
Edgar Bronfman Sr., President-CEO of Seagram and recipient of the US Presidential Medal of Freedom
Aldo Bensadoun, retail magnate, founder-chairman of ALDO Shoes and ALDO Racing Team sponsor
Conrad Black, media tycoon, and current Member of the House of Lords in the British Parliament
R. DeLisle Worrell, econometrician and Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados
David Lametti, current Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Canada
Catherine McKenna, Canada's current Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, and Member of Parliament
Clément Gascon, current Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Sheilah Martin, current Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Gordon Wasserman, The Lord Wasserman, current Member of the House of Lords in the British Parliament
Chase Going Woodhouse, U.S. Congresswoman, early feminist leader, and suffragist
Sir William Osler, "Father of Modern Medicine", co-founded the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Wilder Penfield, neurosurgeon, discovered electrical stimulation of the human brain
Ernest Rutherford, awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for path-breaking work in atomic physics
Frederick Soddy received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering isotopes
James Naismith, inventor of the sport of basketball
Zbigniew Brzezinski, US National Security Advisor and US Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
Charles Taylor, multi-awarded philosopher
Leonard Cohen, novelist, singer-songwriter, and poet
Burt Bacharach, six-time Grammy Award-winning composer and musician
William Shatner, film director and actor best known as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek
Mia Kirshner, movie and TV actress
R. Tait McKenzie, renowned sculptor and pioneer in collegiate physical education
Charles Krauthammer won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for "witty and insightful columns on national issues"
Yoshua Bengio, 2018 recipient of the Turing Award for engineering breakthroughs in deep neural networks as critical component of computing
Louis Nirenberg, world-acclaimed mathematician, won the 2015 Abel Prize for "striking and seminal" work on nonlinear partial differential equations
Victor J. Dzau, former chairman, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and current President of the US National Academy of Medicine
Andrew Schally, awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize in Medicine for pioneering work on hormones
Val Logsdon Fitch, 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for disproving that particle interaction is indifferent to the direction of time
David H. Hubel received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discoveries of information processing in the visual system
Rudolph A. Marcus, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for groundbreaking theory of electron transfer
Willard Boyle, 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing "an imaging semiconductor circuit" as "core technology behind the digital photography revolution"
Jack W. Szostak, 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering how the body protects chromosomes housing genetic code
Ralph Steinman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering dendritic cells and their role in immunity
John O'Keefe received the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the brain's positioning system
Thomas Chang, inventor of the artificial cell and three-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Medicine

Nobel Prize graduates and faculty members

Name Affiliation at McGill Nobel Prize Year
J. Michael Kosterlitz Former professor Physics 2016
John O'Keefe Alumnus Physiology or Medicine 2014
Ralph M. Steinman Alumnus Physiology or Medicine 2011
Willard S. Boyle Alumnus Physics 2009
Jack Szostak Alumnus Physiology or Medicine 2009
Robert Mundell Former professor Economics 1998
Rudolph Marcus Alumnus Chemistry 1992
David Hunter Hubel Alumnus Physiology or Medicine 1981
Val Logsdon Fitch Alumnus Physics 1980
Andrew Schally Alumnus Physiology or Medicine 1977
Otto Hahn Scientist Chemistry 1944
John R. Macleod Former professor Physiology or Medicine 1923
Frederick Soddy Former researcher/demonstrator Chemistry 1921
Ernest Rutherford Former professor Chemistry 1908

Academy Awards

Name Affiliation at McGill Academy Award Year
Kate Biscoe Alumna Best Makeup and Hairstyling 2019
Torill Kove Alumna Best Animated Short Film 2006
Demetri Terzopoulos Alumnus Technical Achievement 2006
Edward Saxon Alumnus Best Picture 1991
Jake Eberts Alumnus Best Picture 1990
John Weldon Alumnus Best Animated Short Film 1978
Beverly Shaffer Alumna Best Live Action Short Film 1977
Burt Bacharach Alumnus Best Original Song 1969, 1981
Best Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) 1969

Grammy Awards

Name Affiliation at McGill Grammy Award Year
George Massenburg Professor Various 2024, 2022, 2011, 1997, 1990
Estelí Gomez Alumnus Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance 2024, 2014
Serban Ghenea Alumnus Various 2024, 2024, 2022, 2021, 2021, 2019, 2019, 2018, 2018, 2018, 2018, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2016, 2016, 2013, 2011, 2006, 2005, 2004
Steven Epstein Professor Various 2022, 2020, 2013, 2013, 2010, 2010, 2004, 2004, 2002, 2001, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1998, 1996, 1985
Richard King Alumnus/Professor Various 2022, 2020, 2015, 2015, 2013, 2013, 2013, 2010, 2010, 2004, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2002, 2001
Nick Squire Alumnus Various 2019, 2019, 2017, 2016
Leonard Cohen Alumnus Various 2018, 2008
Brian Losch Alumnus Various 2014, 2014
Jennifer Gasoi Alumnus Best Children's Album 2014
Chilly Gonzales Alumnus Album of the Year 2014
Win Butler Alumnus Album of the Year 2011
Régine Chassagne Alumnus Album of the Year 2011
Burt Bacharach Alumnus Various 2006, 1999, 1987, 1970, 1970, 1968

Pulitzer Prize

Name Affiliation at McGill Pulitzer Prize Year
Matthew Rosenberg Alumnus National Reporting 2018
John F. Burns Alumnus International Reporting 1993, 1997
Charles Krauthammer Alumnus Commentary 1987
Leon Edel Alumnus Biography or Autobiography 1963

Astronauts

Academics and scholars

Business and media

Politics and government

Canadian politicians and civil servants

McGill alumni have held and continue to hold many positions at the federal and provincial levels in Canadian politics:

Governors-General of Canada
Prime ministers
Cabinet ministers and members of parliament
Supreme Court justices
  • Douglas Abbott (BCL 1918) – appointed to the Court in 1954, previously Minister of National Defence and Minister of Finance[33]
  • Ian Binnie (BA 1960) – appointed to the Court in 1998, formerly Associate Deputy Minister of Justice[32]
  • Louis-Philippe de Grandpré (BCL 1938) – appointed to the Court in 1974, formerly president of the Canadian Bar Association[34]
  • Marie Deschamps (LLM 1983) – appointed to the Court in 2002, previously a Judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal[32]
  • Gérald Fauteux – appointed to the Court in 1949, previously dean of the Faculty of Law.
  • Morris Fish (BA 1959, BCL 1962) – appointed to the Court in 2003, previously a Judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal[32]
  • Clément Gascon (BCL 1981) – appointed to the Court in 2014, previously a Judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal
  • Désiré Girouard (BCL 1860) – appointed to the Court in 1895, previously member of Parliament[35]
  • Charles Gonthier (BCL 1951) – served on the Supreme Court 1989–2003[32]
  • Mahmud Jamal (BCL’93, LLB’93), puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada — appointed to the Court in 2021, previously a Judge on the Court of Appeal for Ontario[36]
  • Nicholas Kasirer (BCL, LLB 1985) – appointed to the court in 2019, previously a judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal[37]
  • Gerald Le Dain (BCL 1949) – appointed to the Court in 1984, previously a Judge on the Federal Court of Appeal[38]
  • Sheilah Martin (BCL, LLB, 1981), – appointed to the Court in 2017, previously judge of the Court of Appeal of Alberta[39]
  • Pierre-Basile Mignault (BCL 1878) – appointed to the Court in 1918, previously President of the Bar of Montréal[40]
  • Thibaudeau Rinfret (BCL 1900) – appointed to the Court in 1924, previously a Judge on the Superior Court of Quebec[41]
Senators
Members of Parliament (House of Commons)
Auditors-general
Ambassadors
Heads of financial institutions
Others

Foreign politicians and other government officials

McGill alumni have held and continue to hold many top government positions in other countries:

Foreign heads of state/government
Cabinet members
Legislators
Judges
Heads of financial institutions
Ambassadors
Others

Art, music, and film

Architects

For a full list of notable alumni and faculty from the School of Architecture, see:

Inventors

Sports

Fictional characters

  • Major Donald Craig, Canadian commando serving with British special forces during World War II, portrayed by Rock Hudson in the 1967 war movie Tobruk. Though the film was loosely based on real events, it's not clear whether or not Hudson's character was based on a real person. Most likely he was a pastiche character, given a Canadian background as cover for Hudson's inability to emulate a British accent.
  • Dr. Walter Langkowski, researcher from the Marvel Comics Canadian superhero series Alpha Flight; portrayed as a McGill-based biophysicist researching the gamma radiation accident which created the Hulk; his discoveries transformed him into the superhero known as Sasquatch
  • Lieutenant Alan McGregor, played by Gary Cooper, Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)
  • Dr. Robert Richardson, played by Lew Ayres, Johnny Belinda (1948)
  • Dr. James Wilson, oncologist and best friend to main character Gregory House in the Fox Network TV drama House

Others

References

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