List of McGill University people

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)
2. James Ferrier (1884-1888)
3. Sir Donald Alexander Smith, Lord Strathcona (1889-1914)
4. Sir William Christopher Macdonald (1914-1917)
5. Sir Robert Laird Borden (1918-1920)
6. Sir Edward Wentworth Beatty (1921-1942)
7. Morris Watson Wilson (1943-1946)
8. Orville Sievwright Tyndale (1946-1952)
9. Bertie Charles Gardner (1952-1957)
10. Ray Edwin Powell (1957-1964)
11. Howard Irwin Ross (1964-1970)
12. Donald Olding Hebb (1970-1974)
13. Stuart Milner Finlayson (1975)
14. Conrad Fetherstonhaugh Harrington (1976-1984)
15. A. Jean de Grandpré (1984-1991)
16. Gretta Chambers (1991-1999)
17. Richard W. Pound (1999-Present)

List of Principals

1. George Jehoshaphat Mountain (1824-1835)
2. John Bethune (1835-1846)
3. Edmund Allen Meredith (1846-1853)
4. Charles Dewey Day (1853-1855)
5. Sir John William Dawson (1855-1893)
6. Sir William Peterson (1895-1919)
7. Sir Auckland Campbell Geddes (1919-1920)
8. General Sir Arthur Currie (1920-1933)
9. Arthur Eustace Morgan (1935-1937)
10. Lewis Williams Douglas (1938-1939)
11. Frank Cyril James (1939-1962)
12. Harold Rocke Robertson (1962-1970)
13. Robert Edward Bell (1970-1979)
14. David Lloyd Johnston (1979-1994)
15. Bernard Shapiro (1994-2002)
16. Heather Munroe-Blum (2003- )

Notable students

• Jennifer Heil — 2006 Olympic gold medallist in freestyle skiing.
• Michael Lawrence — Writer

Noted alumni and professors

Nobel Prize Graduates and Faculty Members

• Robert Mundell — former faculty member, Economics (1999)
• Val Logsdon Fitch — alumnus, Physics (1980)
• David Hunter Hubel — alumnus, Physiology (1981)
• Rudolph Marcus — alumnus, Chemistry (1992)
• Ernest Rutherford — former faculty member, Chemistry (1908)
• Andrew Schally — alumnus, Physiology (1977)
• Frederick Soddy — former demonstrator, Chemistry (1921)

Academics and scholars

• Fazlur Rahman (Islamic studies)
• Eric Berne (psychiatry) — originator of the psychoanalytic theory of transactional analysis
• Gerald Bull — former professor of mechanical engineering, expert on projectiles, designer of the Iraqi Project Babylon
• Mario Bunge — philosopher
• Margaret Ridley Charlton (medical library) — one of the founders of the Medical Library Association (professional associations)
• Carrie Derick — first woman to become a professor in Canada (in botany at McGill)
• Hamid Etemad — professor of international business and renowned business guru and researcher.
• S. I. Hayakawa — linguist, U.S. senator, former president of San Francisco State University
• Ismail al-Faruqi (philosophy and religion) — renowned Muslim philosopher and comparative religion scholar
• Ariel Fenster (Chemistry) — Chemisty professor who has appeared on the Discovery Channel TV show "What's that all about?"
• Donald Olding Hebb (psychology) — father of cognitive psychobiology, pioneer in artificial intelligence, developed concept of Hebbian learning
• Julian Jaynes — psychologist, author of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
• Roger Keesing — celebrated anthropologist
• Raymond Klibansky — philosopher
• Joseph B. Martin — Dean of the Harvard Medical School [1], former chair of neurology and neurosurgery
• James Mallory — for many years Canada's leading constitutional scholar
• Ronald Melzack (medicine) — developed the McGill Pain Questionnaire
• Armand de Mestral — professor of international law
• Brenda Milner — provided the first clear demonstration of the existence of multiple memory systems in the brain with patient H.M.
• Henry Mintzberg — internationally renowned business guru
• Percy Erskine Nobbs — former professor of architecture and designer of many buildings in Montreal, especially at McGill, and in Alberta, British Columbia, and South Africa
• William Osler (medicine) — graduate in medicine (1872) and then McGill professor, he was a medical pioneer, developed the modern form of a doctor's bedside manner. Later one of the four founders of the Johns Hopkins Medical School at Johns Hopkins University
• Bhikhu Parekh, Baron Parekh — celebrated political philosopher, currently at the London School of Economics
• Wilder Penfield (neurosurgery) — neurosurgery pioneer, first director of the renowned Montreal Neurological Institute and Montreal Neurological Hospital, which are affiliated with McGill University
• Steven Pinker (cognitive psychology) — author of "The Blank Slate", "How the Mind Works".
• Judah Hirsch Quastel (biochemistry) — pioneer in neurochemistry and soil metabolism; Director of the McGill University-Montreal General Hospital Research Institute
• Richard Birdsall Rogers — civil engineer and designer of the Peterborough Lift Lock
• Witold Rybczynski — Scottish-born McGill-trained architect and internationally known writer and critic
• Joseph A. Schwarcz — chemist, science populizer, science journalist
• Harold Shapiro, former president emeritus of Princeton University and former president of the University of Michigan.
• Bernard Shapiro (education) — Ethics Commissioner of Canada, former Principal of McGill and Deputy Education Minister of Ontario. Twin brother of Harold.
• Charles Taylor (philosophy) — renowned writer, versatile philosopher, and political theorist

Business and media

• Vinod Agarwal — Founder & former Chairman of LogicVision ($100 million NASDAQ traded company: LGVN)
• John F. Burns — current Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist, formerly of The Globe and Mail
• Edgar Bronfman, Sr. — former CEO of Seagram Distillers.
• Charles Bronfman — Order of Canada recipient, Philanthropist, former Co-Chairman of Seagram Distillers.
• Conrad Black — embattled press baron and media tycoon in the Anglo-Canadian tradition of Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Thomson of Fleet, owner of 650 dailies/weeklies around the world
• Marc Chouinard — president and chief operation officer of The Bay
• John Cleghorn — former chairman of the Royal Bank of Canada, the largest bank in Canada. Currently chairman of SNC-Lavalin group.
• Paul Desmarais, Jr. — Chairman of Power Corp.
• Adam Gopnik — staff writer for The New Yorker magazine
• Charles Krauthammer — Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist, The Washington Post and Time Magazine.
• Mark Phillips — CBS News London bureau correspondent since 1982, formerly CBC News London correspondent
• Seymour Schulich (investments) — benefactor to the Schulich School of Music at McGill and Schulich School of Business, York University
• Lorne Trottier — founder of Matrox Electronic Systems
• Mort Zuckerman — CEO of Atlantic Monthly Corporation and publisher of U.S. News & World Report
• John Roth — former CEO of Nortel Networks

Politics and government

• Sir John Abbott — first Canadian prime minister to be born in Canada
• John Aimers — Dominion Chairman, Monarchist League of Canada
• Ian Binnie — Supreme Court justice
• Zbigniew Brzezinski — former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter
• Irwin Cotler — Justice Minister of Canada, distinguished legal scholar and international human rights lawyer
• Thomas D'Arcy McGee — Father of Confederation and one of only a few notable political assassinations in Canadian history
• Marie Deschamps — Supreme Court justice
• Morris Fish — Supreme Court justice
• Sheila Fraser — Auditor General of Canada
• Charles Gonthier — Supreme Court justice
• Sir Wilfrid Laurier — former Prime Minister of Canada
• Jack Layton — leader of the New Democratic Party
• Dr. Ahmed Nazif — current Prime Minister of Egypt
• Daniel Oduber Quirós — former President of Costa Rica
• Bernard Shapiro — Federal Ethics Commissioner
• Marie-Claire Kirkland Strover — first woman elected to the Quebec National Assembly
• Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga — President of Latvia
• John McCallum — current Liberal Finance Critic in the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet and former Dean of the Faculty of Arts at McGill University.

Art, music, and film

• Michael Andre — poet and editor
• Burt Bacharach — Academy Award-winning musician
• Samantha Bee — correspondent, The Daily Show
• Win Butler — musician, co-founder of "The Arcade Fire"
• Anne Carson — poet and professor of classics
• Leonard Cohen — author, songwriter
• Robert Cooper — president of TriStar Films
• Hume Cronyn — actor, "The Seventh Cross", "Cocoon". Studied theatre, left for Broadway without completing his degree.
• Hubert Davis — BA '00 and Oscar nominee for best documentary short subject
• William Henry Drummond — Irish-born Canadian poet
• Louis Dudek — poet
• Jake Eberts — producer of "Gandhi", "Chariots of Fire"
• Arthur Erickson — architect (Robson Square, Vancouver; Canadian Chancery, Washington DC; Roy Thomson Hall; Museum of Anthropology, UBC; Simon Fraser University; Museum of Glass, Tacoma; California Plaza, San Diego Convention Center)
• Colin Ferguson (actor) — actor, Coupling
• Jessalyn Gilsig — actress, Boston Public, NYPD Blue
• Gavin Heffernan — director (Expiration)
• Mia Kirshner — actress, The L Word
• Irving Layton— Canadian poet
• Stephen Leacock — humorist and economist
• John McCrae — poet, author of famous Canadian poem "In Flanders' Fields"
• Kate and Anna McGarrigle — musicians and folk-singers
• Hugh MacLennan — Canadian writer (Two Solitudes, Barometer Rising)
• Cameron Mathison — actor, All My Children
• Raymond Moriyama — architect (Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto; Canadian Embassy, Tokyo; Ontario Science Centre; Toronto Reference Library; Canadian War Museum; Saudi Arabian National Museum, Riyadh)
• Sam Roberts — musician
• Moshe Safdie — architect (National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Library, Salt Lake City Public Library, Musee de la Civilisation, Habitat '67)
• Kid Koala real name Eric San, turntablist and musician.
• Robert Edison Sandiford — short story writer and essayist
• John Ralston Saul — Governor-General's-Award-winning philosophical author
• William Shatner — lead actor in Star Trek and Boston Legal, played Captain James T. Kirk
• Sonja Skarstedt — poet and illustrator
• Ruth Taylor — poet
• Ken Vandermark — Jazz saxophonist and MacArthur Foundation Genius Award winner.
• Rufus Wainwright — (briefly attended — dropped out upon record deal) Canadian recording artist, musician.
• William Weintraub — Author, journalist and filmmaker (Why Rock the Boat?)
• John Weldon — Academy Award winner and National Film Board animator
• Jan Wong — Globe and Mail columnist ("Lunch with Jan Wong" series), and author of several notable books, including award-winning "Red China Blues" and "Jan Wong's China".

Inventors

• Bernard Belleau — inventor of Lamivudine, a drug used in the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis B infection
• William Chalmers — inventor of Plexiglas
• Thomas Chang — creator of first artificial cell
• James George Alwyn Creighton — inventor of North American ice hockey rules
• Charles R. Drew — MDCM '33, black American medical pioneer, track star who led McGill to five intercollegiate titles, and, as medical advisor for the Blood for Britain program of WWII, the father of blood banks
• Alan Emtage — inventor of Archie, the grandfather of search engines
• Julie Masis — Russian-American journalist and social activist.
• James Naismith — BA 1887, inventor of basketball
• Paul Moller — inventor of the Moller Skycar, a VTOL aircraft
• Frank Patrick — BA 1908, wrote much of the NHL rule book
• Frank "Shag" Shaughnessy — McGill coach who revolutionised football by introducing the forward pass
• Willard Boyle, inventor of the Charge-coupled device (CCD).

Others

• Norman Bethune — as "Bai Qiu'en," subject of essay by Mao Zedong; medical professor. He became the Red Army’s Medical Chief and trained thousands of Chinese as medics and doctors, he died in 1939 (from blood poisoning) during the Long March.
• Lawrence Moore Cosgrave — Canadian signer of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender
• Thomas Neill Cream — Glasgow-born serial killer of the 1800s, thought by some to have been Jack the Ripper
• Ken Dryden — LLB '73, former Montreal Canadiens goalie, Liberal Party politician, Minister of Social Development in the Paul Martin government
• Phil Edwards — MD '36, one of Canada's most decorated Olympians with 5 bronze medals
• John Peters Humphrey — co-writer of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Julie Payette — astronaut
• Sidney Pierce — BA '22, BCL '25, LLD '56, 1924 Olympic swimmer and former Canadian ambassador to many countries
• Richard "Dick" Pound — former Olympic swimmer, former IOC vice president, chancellor of McGill, current chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)
• Robert Rabinovitch — President and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
• Francis Scrimger. Victoria Cross winner, (1915). BA (1901), MDCM (1905). Later Professor of Surgery and Chief of Surgery at the Children's Memorial Hospital.
• Kim St-Pierre — BEd, 2005, Canadian Olympic women's hockey team (2002 and 2006), McGill's first Olympic gold medallist (Salt Lake City, 2002)
• Robert Thirsk — astronaut
• Dafydd Williams — astronaut
• Jack Wright — MDCM '28, eleven-year veteran of Canadian Davis Cup team in 1920s and 1930s