List of McGill University people

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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 (1999–2009)
18. H. Arnold Steinberg (2009–2014)
19. Michael A. Meighen (2014–present)

List of principals

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

Noted alumni and professors

Nobel Prize graduates and faculty members

Name	Affiliation at McGill	Nobel Prize	Year
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
Frederick Soddy	Former demonstrator	Chemistry	1921
Ernest Rutherford	Former professor	Chemistry	1908

The count of Nobel laureates affiliated with McGill is sometimes incorrectly elevated to thirteen as Mohan Munasinghe, an alumnus of McGill, was a Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.

Academy Award graduates

Main article: Academy Awards

Name	Affiliation at McGill	Academy Award	Year
Torill Kove	Alumnus	Best Animated Short Film	2006
Edward Saxon	Alumnus	Best Picture	1991
Jake Eberts	Alumnus	Best Picture	1990
John Weldon	Alumnus	Best Animated Short Film	1978
Beverly Shaffer	Alumnus	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

Pulitzer Prize graduates

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

Academics and scholars

• Selim Akl — unconventional computer scientist
• Ismail al-Faruqi — Muslim philosopher and comparative religion scholar
• Alia Al-Saji — professor of philosophy
• Antony Alcock — involved in the negotiations leading up to the Belfast Agreement
• Brian Alters — evolution and education
• Frederick Andermann — neuroscientist
• Athanasios Asimakopulos — prominent economist in the Post Keynesian tradition
• Brigitte Askonas — British immunologist
• Francis Aveling — Canadian psychologist and Roman Catholic priest
• Sir David Baulcombe, FRS — British plant scientist and geneticist; post-doctoral fellow at McGill 1977-1978; now Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge
• Eric Berne — psychiatrist, originator of the psychoanalytic theory of transactional analysis
• Raoul Bott — Wolf Prize in Mathematics, 2000
• Reuven Brenner — economist; current faculty member
• Ayşe Buğra — economist
• Gerald Bull — former professor of mechanical engineering; expert on projectiles; designer of the Iraqi Project Babylon
• Mario Bunge — physicist and philosopher
• Ron Burnett — President and Vice-Chancellor, Emily Carr University of Art and Design; former Director of the Graduate Program in Communications, McGill University
• Anne Carson — thinker, writer, translator, and University of Michigan classics professor
• Thomas Chang — developed world's first artificial cell
• Margaret Ridley Charlton — one of the founders of the Medical Library Association
• Thomas H. Clark — namesake of the mineral Thomasclarkite
• Robert W. Cox (BA 1946) — former United Nations official; a leading authority of the British school of International Political Economy; former professor of political science at Columbia University; current professor emeritus at York University
• R. F. Patrick Cronin — cardiologist; Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill (1972–1977); healthcare consultant
• Philip J. Currie — paleontologist and former curator of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology
• Roger Daley — meteorologist
• Armand de Mestral — professor of international law
• Carrie Derick — first woman to become a professor in Canada (in botany at McGill)
• Arti Dhand — associate professor at the University of Toronto, Department for the Study of Religion
• Charles R. Drew — physician and professor
• Hamid Etemad — professor of international business; business guru and researcher
• Ariel Fenster — chemistry professor who has appeared on the Discovery Channel TV show What's That All About?
• James E. Gill (BSc 1921) — geology professor who introduced the Master's of Applied Science in Mineral Exploration program and established an analytical laboratory for the application of geochemistry to mineral exploration
• Gilbert Girdwood — professor of chemistry; radiologist
• John Harnad — physicist; CAP/CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics
• Stevan Harnad — Canada Research Chair, Cognitive Sciences; open access activist
• S. I. Hayakawa — linguist, U.S. senator, former president of San Francisco State University
• Donald Olding Hebb — father of cognitive psychobiology; pioneer in artificial intelligence; developed concept of Hebbian learning
• John Hemming — explorer
• Herbert Jasper — neuroscientist
• Julian Jaynes — psychologist, author of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
• George Karpati — neuroscientist
• Victoria Kaspi — astrophysicist researching neutron stars and pulsars
• Roger Keesing — anthropologist
• Howard Atwood Kelly — member of the faculty of medicine at McGill; one of the "Big Four" founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, credited with establishing gynecology as a true specialty
• Raymond Klibansky — philosopher
• Harold Laski — political theorist
• Daniel Levitin — cognitive psychologist
• Pericles Lewis — founding President of Yale-NUS College; former professor of English and comparative literature at Yale University
• Colin MacLeod — Canadian-American geneticist; discovered DNA breakthroughs
• James Mallory — for many years Canada's leading constitutional scholar
• Joseph Boyd Martin — former Dean of the Harvard Medical School; former Dean and Chancellor at the University of California, San Francisco; former chair of neurology and neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute
• Ronald Melzack — developed the McGill Pain Questionnaire
• John S. Meyer — physician
• Brenda Milner — provided the first clear demonstration of the existence of multiple memory systems in the brain with patient H.M.
• Henry Mintzberg — business guru
• Albert Moll — professor of psychiatry; pioneer of psychiatric day treatment
• E.R. Ward Neale — geologist, professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland
• Percy Erskine Nobbs — former professor of architecture; designer of many buildings in Montreal, especially at McGill, and in Alberta, British Columbia, and South Africa
• James Olds — neuroscientist and psychologist; co-discovered the reward center of the brain; a founder of modern neuroscience
• Santa J. Ono — immunologist; 28th President of The University of Cincinnati; discovered NFX1 RING Finger motif; showed HMGA2 truncation drives mesenchymal tumor development
• William Osler (medicine 1872) — McGill professor; medical pioneer; developed the modern form of a doctor's bedside manner; a founder of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University
• Bhikhu Parekh, Baron Parekh — political philosopher, currently at the London School of Economics
• Arthur Lindo Patterson — physicist
• Wilder Penfield — neurosurgery pioneer; first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Montreal Neurological Hospital, which are affiliated with McGill University
• Steven Pinker — cognitive psychologist; author of The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works
• Susan Pinker — psychologist; author of The Sexual Paradox
• Judah Hirsch Quastel — biochemist; pioneer in neurochemistry and soil metabolism; Director of the McGill University-Montreal General Hospital Research Institute
• Fazlur Rahman — Islamic studies
• James R. Reid — president of College of Montana (1889-1893) and Montana State University (1894-1904)
• Richard Birdsall Rogers — civil engineer and designer of the Peterborough Lift Lock
• Christopher E. Rudd — immunologist; professor at Harvard and Cambridge
• Witold Rybczynski — Scottish-born McGill-trained architect and internationally known writer and critic
• Philip Carl Salzman — anthropologist
• Joseph A. Schwarcz — chemist, science popularizer, science journalist
• Justine Sergent — neuroscientist
• Bernard Shapiro — Ethics Commissioner of Canada; former Principal of McGill and Deputy Education Minister of Ontario; twin brother of Harold Shapiro
• Harold Shapiro — former president of Princeton University; former president of the University of Michigan; twin brother of Bernard Shapiro
• Stephen Alexander Smith — legal scholar and writer
• Charles Taylor — writer, philosopher, and political theorist; 2007 winner of the Templeton Prize
• Marc Tessier-Lavigne — current president of Rockefeller University; Rhodes scholar
• Dale C. Thomson — Vice-Principal (1973–1976); Professor of Political Science (1973–1994)
• Lionel Tiger — best-selling author; Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University
• Bruce Trigger — anthropologist
• Tom Velk — monetary economics and public policy professor
• Jacob Viner — professor; early leader of the Chicago school of economics
• Immanuel Wallerstein — former professor of sociology (1971–1976); political scientist, known for the World Systems Theory
• Jagannath Wani — statistics professor and philanthropist focusing on mental illness awareness
• Franklin White — scholar-practitioner; former President, Canadian Public Health Association; 1997 Medal of Honor from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO)
• Lydia White — linguist
• Karl Moore — strategy professor
• Tim Wu — professor at Columbia Law School; adviser for the New York State Attorney General

Business and media

• Suhayya Abu-Hakima — Co-founder and CEO of AmikaNow! and Amika Mobile Corporation
• Vinod Agarwal — founder and former chairman of LogicVision ($100 million NASDAQ traded company)
• Bertrand Cesvet — Executive Chairman and Senior Partner at Sid Lee
• Suroosh Alvi — journalist, filmmaker, and co-founder of VICE magazine
• Aldo Bensadoun — founder and CEO of the ALDO Group
• Norman Jaskolka — President at the ALDO Group
• David W. Binet — President and CEO of The Woodbridge Company
• Rima Qureshi — Chief Strategy Officer and Head of M&A at Ericsson
• Conrad Black — imprisoned 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
• Cale Brillinger — staff writer for Tokyo's Sankei Shimbun daily newspaper
• Charles Bronfman — Order of Canada recipient; philanthropist; former Co-Chairman of Seagram Distillers
• Mark Hantho — Vice Chairman of Deutsche Bank Securities and Global Head of Equity Capital Markets
• Michel Pettigrew — COO and President at Ferring Pharmaceuticals
• Edgar Bronfman, Sr. — former CEO of Seagram
• Marc Chouinard — president and chief operation officer of The Bay
• Fred Steer — CFO of the Montreal Canadiens
• John Cleghorn — former chairman of the Royal Bank of Canada, the largest bank in Canada; currently chairman of SNC-Lavalin group
• Jean Coutu — businessman; billionaire; founder and CEO of Jean Coutu Group
• Robert Dorrance — Chairman, CEO, and President of TD Securities and Group Head of Wholesale Banking at the TD Bank Group
• Paul Desmarais, Jr. — Chairman of Power Corporation
• Darren Entwistle — president and chief executive officer of Telus
• Adam Gopnik — staff writer for The New Yorker magazine
• Donald Lewtas — CFO of the private equity investment firm Onex Corporation
• Alain Bellemare — President and CEO at Bombardier Inc.
• William Webb — Chief Investment Officer at the wealth management firm Gluskin Sheff
• Nagi Kawkabani — Co-CEO and Partner at the European hedge fund Brevan Howard
• Alberta Cefis — Head of Global Transaction Banking at Scotiabank
• Guy Hachey — Former COO and President at Bombardier Aerospace
• Donna Hayes — first female CEO of Harlequin Publishing
• Kuok Khoon Hong — Singaporean billionaire and co-founder of Wilmar International
• Dick Irvin, Jr. — sports broadcaster and author; second longest serving member of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada (after Bob Cole)
• Benjamin Joffe-Walt — writer, CNN Africa Print Journalist of the Year
• Hubert Lacroix — President and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• David Lawee — partner and founder of Google Capital
• John MacBain — founder, CEO and President of Trader Classified Media
• Parker Mason — Communications Coordinator, CNW GROUP
• Thomas S. Monahan — President and CEO of CIBC Mellon
• François-Jean Coutu — President and CEO of the Jean Coutu Group
• Claude Mongeau — CEO and President of the Canadian National Railway
• Andy Nulman — co-founder of Just for Laughs
• David Brown — President and CEO of the Layne Christensen Company
• Mark Phillips — CBS News London bureau correspondent since 1982, formerly CBC News London correspondent
• Jade Raymond — video game producer at Ubisoft; co-host of G4TV's Electronic Playground
• Matthew Rosenberg — foreign correspondent at The New York Times, formerly of The Wall Street Journal
• John Roth — former CEO of Nortel Networks
• Calin Rovinescu — President and CEO of Air Canada
• Jean-Francois Courville — COO of RBC Wealth Management
• Seymour Schulich — benefactor to the Schulich School of Music at McGill and Schulich School of Business, York University
• Allan Scott — writer-producer of more than 20 feature films, including Don't Look Now, voted the best British film of all time; wrote Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; as chairman of Macallan-Glenlivet, he turned Macallan into a world-leading malt whisky
• Gerald Sheff — co-founder of Gluskin Sheff, a wealth management firm
• Savik Shuster — TV journalist working for Ukrainian television
• Helga Stephenson — interim CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television
• James C. Thackray — former president and CEO of Bell Canada
• Ziya Tong — television personality and co-host of Daily Planet
• Lorne Trottier — founder of Matrox Electronic Systems
• Les Vadasz — founding member of Intel Corporation
• Zain Verjee — co-anchor of CNN International's European morning program World Report
• Elizabeth Wirth — entrepreneur, donor of $7.5M to the Schulich School of Music
• Michelle Zatlyn — co-founder of CloudFlare
• Moses Znaimer — co-founder and former President and Executive Producer of CityTV; Chairman and Executive Producer of the Access Media Group
• Mort Zuckerman — CEO of Atlantic Monthly Corporation and publisher of U.S. News & World Report
• Scott McDonald — CEO of Oliver Wyman
• Monique Leroux — President and CEO of Desjardins Group
• Robert Rabinovitch — President and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• André Gremillet — Managing Director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
• André Roy — Managing Partner at the law firm Stikeman Elliott
• Nathalie Bernier — Former Managing Partner at KPMG

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:

Governor-General of Canada

• David Lloyd Johnston — Governor General of Canada since 2010. Former McGill principal; former head of the Board of Overseers at Harvard University; former head of the University of Waterloo, 1999-2011

Prime Ministers

• Sir John Abbott (BCL 1854) — third Prime Minister of Canada and first to be born in Canada
• Sir Wilfrid Laurier (BCL 1864) — seventh Prime Minister of Canada
• Justin Trudeau (BA 1994) — 23rd and current Prime Minister of Canada

Cabinet Ministers

• Chris Alexander (BA 1989) — Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, 2013-2015; previously Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan, 2003-2005
• Warren Allmand (BCL 1952) — served variously as Solicitor General, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs between 1972 and 1979
• Steven Blaney (Cert Mgmt 1991) — Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 2013-2015
• Brooke Claxton (BCL) — Minister of Health, 1943-1946; Minister of National Defence, 1946-1954
• Irwin Cotler (BA 1961, BCL 1964) — Minister of Justice and Attorney General, 2003-2006
• Charles Doherty (BCL 1876, Hon. LLD 1913) — Minister of Justice and Attorney General, 1911-1921
• Charles Drury (BCL) — Minister of Finance, Defence, Public Works, Industry, President of the Treasury Board
• John McCallum (PhD 1977) — Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada since 2015; former Dean of the Faculty of Arts of McGill University
• Catherine McKenna (LLB 1999) — Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, 2015-
• Joe Oliver (BA 1961, BCL 1964) — Minister of Finance, 2014-2015
• Greg Rickford (BCL/LLB 2005) — Minister of Natural Resources, 2014-2015

Supreme Court Justices

• Douglas Abbott (BCL 1918) — appointed to the Court in 1954, previously Minister of National Defence and Minister of Finance
• Ian Binnie (BA 1960) — appointed to the Supreme Court in 1998, formerly Associate Deputy Minister of Justice
• Louis-Philippe de Grandpré (BCL 1938) — appointed to the Court in 1974, formerly president of the Canadian Bar Association
• Marie Deschamps (LLM 1983) — appointed to the Court in 2002, previously a Judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal
• Morris Fish (BA 1959, BCL 1962) — appointed to the Court in 2003, previously a Judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal
• 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
• Charles Gonthier (BCL 1951) — served on the Supreme Court 1989-2003
• Gerald Le Dain (BCL 1949) — appointed to the Court in 1984, previously a Judge on the Federal Court of Appeal
• Pierre-Basile Mignault (BCL 1878) — appointed to the Court in 1918, previously President of the Bar of Montréal
• Thibaudeau Rinfret (BCL 1900) — appointed to the Court in 1924, previously a Judge on the Superior Court of Quebec

Senators

• Albert Joseph Brown (BA 1883, BCL 1886) — Senator for Wellington, 1932-1938
• Henry Joseph Cloran (BCL) — Senator for Victoria, Quebec, 1903-1928
• Sheila Finestone (BSc 1947) — appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1999
• Joan Fraser (BA 1965) — appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1998
• Linda Frum (BA 1984) — appointed to the Senate in 2009
• Sir William Hales Hingston (MD CM 1851) — Senator for Rougemont, 1896-1907; Mayor of Montreal, 1875-1877
• James Horace King (MD CM 1895) — Leader of the Government in the Senate, 1942-1945
• Michael Meighen (BA 1960) — appointed to the Senate in 1990
• Vivienne Poy (BA 1962) — appointed to the Senate in 1998
• Larry Smith (BCL 1976) — appointed to the Senate in 2011

Auditors General

• Denis Desautels (BCom 1964) — Auditor General, 1991-2001
• Sheila Fraser — first female Auditor General of Canada

Others

• L. Michael Berry (BA 1961) — Canada's High Commissioner to Australia
• Ian Brodie (BA 1990) — Chief of Staff in the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 2006-2008
• Rosemary Brown — first Black Canadian woman to be elected to a provincial legislature
• May Cutler (BA, MA) — first woman to serve as Mayor of Westmount, Quebec (1987-1991); founder of Tundra Books; first female Canadian publisher of children's books
• Mark Heyck — current Mayor of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
• Sir Charles Peers Davidson (BA 1864, MA 1867, BCL 1873, DCL 1875, Hon. LLD 1912) — Chief Justice of the Quebec Superior Court, 1912-1915
• Henry Thomas Duffy (BA 1876, BCL 1879) — Minister of Public Works and Treasurer of Quebec
• R. A. E. Greenshields (BA 1883, BCL 1885) — Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec, 1929-1942
• Don Johnston — former Secretary General of the OECD
• Jack Layton (BA 1969) — former leader of the New Democratic Party and Leader of the Opposition
• David Lewis (BA and LLD) — Rhodes Scholar and former leader of the New Democratic Party (1971–75)
• Thomas d'Arcy McGee (BCL 1861) — a father of the Canadian Confederation
• Thomas Mulcair — current head of the New Democratic Party and Leader of the Opposition
• Alexander Cameron Rutherford (BA, LLB 1881) —first Premier of Alberta, founder of the University of Alberta
• Bernard Shapiro (BA 1956) — Federal Ethics Commissioner, 2004-2007
• Marie-Claire Kirkland Strover — first woman elected to the Quebec National Assembly, serving between 1966 and 1973.
• Alan Macnaughton — former MP and Speaker of the House of Commons
• The "McGill 5" — five then-current McGill students who were elected as NDP MPs in 2011:
  • Charmaine Borg — current MP for Terrebonne-Blainville
  • Matthew Dubé — current MP for Chambly-Borduas
  • Mylène Freeman (BA 2011) — current MP for Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel
  • Laurin Liu — current MP for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles
  • Jamie Nicholls — current MP for Vaudreuil-Soulanges

Foreign politicians and civil servants

Heads of State

• Ahmed Nazif (PhD 1983) — former Prime Minister of Egypt
• Daniel Oduber Quirós (MA 1945) — former President of Costa Rica
• Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga (PhD 1965) — former president of Latvia; first female president of Latvia

Others

• Jeanne Atherden — Minister of Health of the Parliament of Bermuda
• Zbigniew Brzezinski — former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter
• Miguel Castilla (BA Economics) — incumbent Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru
• Gilbert Cooper — former mayor of Hamilton, Bermuda and member of the House of Assembly of Bermuda
• Gavin Henderson, 2nd Baron Faringdon — former member of the London County Council, Chairman of the Fabian Society, 1960-1961
• Jorge de las Alas (MS, 1966, Ph.D. 1971) — astronomer and former Secretary of Science and Technology, Republic of the Philippines
• Andrew Hamilton Gault — Conservative Member of Parliament for Taunton, Somerset, UK (1924-1935); raised the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, the last privately raised regiment in the British Empire; bequeathed his Mont Saint-Hilaire estate to McGill in 1958
• David Hackett — boarding school friend of Robert F. Kennedy; organizational father of Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), the domestic US Peace Corps program; inspiration for Phineas in John Knowles's 1959 novel A Separate Peace; McGill hockey player and selected for the US Olympic Hockey Team (1952)
• Jamaluddin Jarjis — former Malaysian ambassador to the United States, former Malaysian government minister
• Joanne Liu — International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)
• Joni Madraiwiwi (DipA&SL 1988, LLM 1989) — Vice-President of Fiji, 2004-2006
• Ilya Sheyman (BA 2006) — Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2012 election

Art, music, and film

• Will Aitken — novelist and film critic
• Patrick Allen — English actor and businessman, known for Shakespearean roles and for narrating the controversial Protect and Survive public information films for the British government
• Michael Andre — poet and editor
• Hadji Bakara — "sound manipulator" and secondary keyboardist for Wolf Parade
• Samantha Bee — correspondent, The Daily Show
• Yanic Bercier — drummer for death metal band Quo Vadis
• Claire Boucher — musician and visual artist under stage name Grimes
• Win Butler — musician, co-founder of Arcade Fire
• Peter Butterfield — concert tenor and conductor
• Anne Carson — poet and professor of classics
• Regine Chassagne — musician, co-founder of Arcade Fire
• Leonard Cohen — poet, author, songwriter, singer, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee
• Sheldon Cohen — animator and illustrator of The Hockey Sweater
• Chuck Comeau — drummer and songwriter for band Simple Plan
• 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 2000) — Oscar nominee for best documentary short subject
• Audrey Capel Doray — artist
• Christopher Downs — actor and Entertainer in Taiwan and China, known there as 夏克立
• William Henry Drummond — Irish-born Canadian poet
• Louis Dudek — poet
• 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)
• Mary Fahl — singer and actress
• Colin Ferguson — actor, Eureka
• Karl Fischer — architect practicing in Montreal and New York City
• Fredrik Garvik — screenwriter
• Jessalyn Gilsig — actress, Boston Public, NYPD Blue, Nip/Tuck, Glee
• Evan Goldberg — co-writer of Superbad, Pineapple Express
• Jonathan Goldstein — author and radio producer, host of WireTap on CBC Radio One
• Chilly Gonzales — Grammy-nominated musician
• Donna Grantis — Guitarist with Prince's 3RDEYEGIRL
• Linda Griffiths — playwright, actress
• Aaron Harris — percussionist/drummer, of Islands, Montreal-based indie rock group
• Sinjin Hawke — music producer and DJ
• Gavin Heffernan — director, Expiration
• Jennifer Irwin — actress, Still Standing
• Heather Juergensen — actress, co-screenwriter Kissing Jessica Stein
• George Karpati
• Kid Koala, born Eric San — turntablist and musician
• Mia Kirshner — actress, The L Word
• Veronika Krausas — composer
• Christian Lander — author of the Stuff White People Like blog
• Robert Lantos — film producer
• Irving Layton — poet
• Stephen Leacock — humorist and economist
• Rachelle Lefevre — actress, Big Wolf on Campus, Twilight
• Daniel Levitin — writer, This Is Your Brain On Music; musician
• Julia Loktev — director of The Loneliest Planet, Day Night Day Night
• Brian Macdonald — choreographer and dancer in Canada, New York, and Europe
• Hugh MacLennan — writer, Two Solitudes, Barometer Rising
• Miles Mander — early film actor, director and novelist
• Ruth Marshall — actress who played in Flashpoint as the SRU's forensic psychologist
• Cameron Mathison — actor, All My Children
• Marc Mayer — art curator and director of the National Gallery of Canada
• Harry Mayerovitch — artist
• John McCrae — surgeon, poet, author of Canadian poem "In Flanders' Fields"
• Kate and Anna McGarrigle — musicians and folk-singers
• Casey McKinnon — actress
• Sophia Michahelles — pageant puppet designer and co-artistic director, Processional Arts Workshop
• Raymond Moriyama — architect (Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto; Canadian Embassy, Tokyo; Ontario Science Centre; Toronto Reference Library; Canadian War Museum; Saudi Arabian National Museum, Riyadh)
• Suniti Namjoshi — writer
• Donald Patriquin — composer and organist
• Mauro Pezzente — bassist and co-founder of Godspeed You! Black Emperor
• Sam Roberts — musician
• John Rogers — writer/producer, Leverage
• Rebecca Rosenblum — writer, winner of the 2007 Metcalf-Rooke Award
• Dean Rosenthal — composer
• Moshe Safdie — architect (National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Library, Salt Lake City Public Library, Musee de la Civilisation, Habitat '67)
• Robert Edison Sandiford — short story writer and essayist
• John Ralston Saul — Governor-General's-Award-winning philosophical author
• Robert William Service — poet and writer of the Yukon Gold Rush
• Mark Shainblum — author and comic book creator
• William Shatner — actor, 'Boston Legal; Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek
• Jaspreet Singh — author, Seventeen Tomatoes
• Sonja Skarstedt — poet and illustrator
• Evan Solomon — journalist and co-host of CBC News
• Donald Steven — Juno Award and Jules Léger Prize winning composer
• Ruth Taylor — poet
• J. Torres — comic book writer
• Jessica Trisko; — 2007 Miss Earth titleholder
• Eric Turner — singer/songwriter for the band Street Fighting Boys
• Ken Vandermark — jazz saxophonist and MacArthur Foundation "genius award" winner
• Rufus Wainwright (briefly attended — dropped out upon record deal) — recording artist, musician
• William Weintraub — author, journalist and filmmaker (Why Rock the Boat?)
• Robert Stanley Weir — author (in 1908) of the English words to "O, Canada"
• Matthew White — countertenor
• Jan Wong — Globe and Mail columnist ("Lunch with Jan Wong" series); author of books including award-winning Red China Blues and Jan Wong's China
• Royal Wood — singer/songwriter
• Breckon Young — songwriter for Katy Perry

Inventors

• Bernard Belleau — inventor of lamivudine, a drug used in the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis B infection
• Willard Boyle — inventor of the charge-coupled device
• William Chalmers — first in the Western Hemisphere to investigate methacrylate plastics
• Thomas Chang — creator of the first artificial cell
• James Creighton (Law 1880) — considered the originator of North American ice hockey rules
• Charles R. Drew (MDCM 1933) — black American medical pioneer; track star who led McGill to five intercollegiate titles; as medical advisor for the Blood for Britain program of World War II, the father of blood banks
• Alan Emtage — inventor of Archie, the grandfather of search engines
• Colonel Dr. Cluny MacPherson (MD 1901) — inventor of the MacPherson respirator gas mask during World War I
• Paul Moller — inventor of the Moller Skycar, a VTOL aircraft
• James Naismith (BA 1887) — inventor of basketball; legendary University of Kansas coach; namesake of six NCAA college basketball awards

Sports

• Betty Archdale — former captain (1934/5) of English women's cricket team
• Mike Babcock — former head coach of the Detroit Red Wings, 2008 Stanley Cup champions; current head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs
• Russ Blinco — Montreal Maroons centre; 1935 NHL Rookie of the Year
• Guy Boucher — head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning
• George Burnett — former head coach for the Edmonton Oilers
• Doug Carpenter — former head coach for the Toronto Maple Leafs and New Jersey Devils
• Ken Dryden (LLB 1974) — politician, lawyer, businessman, author; retired National Hockey League goaltender from the Montreal Canadiens; former President of the Toronto Maple Leafs
• Laurent Duvernay-Tardif — American football player player for the Kansas City Chiefs
• Phil Edwards (MD 1936) — one of Canada's most decorated Olympians with 5 bronze medals
• Jack Gelineau — Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks goaltender who won Calder Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year in 1950
• Jennifer Heil (BComm) — 2006 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle skiing
• George Hodgson (BEng 1916) — Canadian Olympic men's swim team (1912 and 1920); McGill's first athlete to win an Olympic gold medal; first Canadian to win two Olympic gold medals (Stockholm, 1916)
• Jackrabbit Johannsen; Norwegian-Canadian; credited with introducing cross-country skiing to North America; lived in retirement at McGill's Mont-Saint-Hilaire Gault Nature Reserve
• George Jost — member of the Red Birds Ski Club, North America's oldest downhill ski club, founded in 1928 at McGill; first non-European to win the International University Ski Championship (in 1933)
• Charline Labonté (BEd - Physical Education) — 2006 Olympic gold medalist in women's ice hockey
• R. Tait McKenzie — pioneer in college physical education; sculptor; physician
• Ravin Moorthy — President of Cricket Canada
• Kevin O'Neill — former head coach of the Toronto Raptors; current head coach of the USC Trojans
• Reginald Oey (swimming) — Holds the record for longest eggbeater in the Canada Men's Endurance Swimming League, with a duration of 14 hours and 20 minutes (in 2014)
• Frank Patrick (BA 1908) — wrote much of the NHL rule book
• Hon. Sydney David Pierce (BA 1922, BCL 1925, LLD 1956) — 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),
• Kim St-Pierre (BEd 2005) — Canadian Olympic women's hockey team (2002 and 2006), McGill's first female athlete to become an Olympic gold medallist (Salt Lake City, 2002)
• Frank "Shag" Shaughnessy — first professional football coach hired by a Canadian university, he revolutionized Canadian college football by introducing the forward pass in 1921 in a game against Syracuse University and lobbied for a decade until the forward pass was adopted by the Canadian Rugby Football Union in 1931
• Jack Wright (MDCM 1928) — eleven-year veteran of Canadian Davis Cup team in 1920s and 1930s
• David Zilberman — Canadian Olympic heavyweight wrestler

Fictional characters

• Major Donald Craig, a 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, a 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 the Bengal Lancers (1935)
• Dr. James Wilson — oncologist and best friend to main character Gregory House in the Fox Network TV drama House

Others

• Norman Bethune — as "Bai Qiu'en", subject of essay "In Memory of Norman Bethune" (Jinian Bai Qiu'en) by Mao Zedong; medical professor; became Red Army’s Medical Chief and trained thousands of Chinese as medics and doctors; died in 1939 (from blood poisoning) during the Second Sino-Japanese War
• Frank E. Buck — horticulturalist
• Ian Campbell, 12th Duke of Argyll — Scottish peer and landowner
• Chi-Ming Chow — cardiologist and board member of the Heart and Stroke Foundation
• 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
• Rocco Galati — constitutional lawyer; challenged Justice Marc Nadon's appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada
• Charles Goren — world champion bridge player and bestselling author
• Jonathan Gordon-Chow — Canadian hockey player with the Tehran Tigers in the MEHL.
• John Peters Humphrey — author of the first draft of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Arnold Johnson — performed the first cardiac heart catheterization procedure in Canada in 1946
• Franklin Lyons — lawyer
• Annie MacDonald Langstaff — in 1914 became McGill's and Quebec's first female law graduate but was not admitted to the Quebec bar until 2006 (posthumously); the Quebec bar did not admit women until 1941, at which time Langstaff felt she was too old to join
• Xavier Martin — socialite
• Neville Maxwell — British journalist; author of notable book on the Sino-Indian War
• Elizabeth C. Monk (BA 1919, BCL 1923, LLD 1975) — first woman admitted to the Quebec bar in 1942
• Nancy Morris — first female rabbi in Scotland
• Reginald Oey — Became a well-known campus celebrity after creating his inspirational and informative Facebook page "Reggie At McGill"
• Julie Payette — astronaut
• Autumn Phillips — wife of Peter Phillips, who is 11th in line for the British throne
• André Robert — father of the Canadian numerical weather prediction models
• Francis Scrimger (BA 1901, MDCM 1905) — Victoria Cross winner, 1915; Professor of Surgery and Chief of Surgery at the Children's Memorial Hospital
• Harmeet Singh Sooden — peace activist once held captive in Iraq
• Zohaib Asad Syed — first student in the world to have achieved 28 A's in International O/GCSE level
• Robert Thirsk — astronaut
• Dafydd Williams — astronaut
• Victor Dzau (MD) — President of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences
• Sophie Durand (B.Ed); Miss Universe Canada Representative 2013