List of McGill University people

List of chancellors

1. Charles Dewey Day
2. James Ferrier
3. Sir Donald Alexander Smith, Lord Strathcona
4. Sir William Christopher Macdonald
5. Sir Robert Laird Borden
6. Sir Edward Wentworth Beatty
7. Morris Watson Wilson
8. Orville Sievwright Tyndale
9. Bertie Charles Gardner
10. Ray Edwin Powell
11. Howard Irwin Ross
12. Donald Olding Hebb
13. Stuart Milner Finlayson
14. Conrad Fetherstonhaugh Harrington
15. A. Jean de Grandpré
16. Gretta Chambers
17. Richard W. Pound
18. H. Arnold Steinberg
19. Michael A. Meighen

    List of principals

20. George Jehoshaphat Mountain
21. John Bethune
22. Edmund Allen Meredith
23. Sir John William Dawson
24. Sir William Peterson
25. Sir Auckland Campbell Geddes
26. General Sir Arthur Currie
27. Arthur Eustace Morgan
28. Lewis Williams Douglas
29. Frank Cyril James
30. Harold Rocke Robertson
31. Robert Edward Bell
32. David Lloyd Johnston
33. Bernard Shapiro
34. Heather Munroe-Blum
35. Suzanne Fortier

    Noted alumni and professors

Nobel Prize graduates and faculty members

Academy Award graduates

Pulitzer Prize graduates

Academics and scholars

• Nancy J. Adler - Professor of Organizational Behavior and Samuel Bronfman Chair in Management at McGill University
• Selim Akl - unconventional computer scientist
• Ismail al-Faruqi - Muslim philosopher and comparative religion scholar
• Alia Al-Saji - professor of philosophy
• Antony Alcock - Ulster historian; actively 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 - prominent British immunologist
• Francis Aveling - Canadian psychologist, divinity scholar, and Roman Catholic priest
• Sir David Baulcombe, FRS - British plant scientist and geneticist; now Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge
• Jill Beck - dance and choreography scholar, and 15th President of Lawrence University
• Eric Berne - psychiatrist, originator of the psychoanalytic theory of transactional analysis
• Raoul Bott - mathematician specializing in topology, 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
• Miriam Burland - astronomer at Dominion Observatory from 1927 to 1967
• 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
• Donald Ewen Cameron - psychiatrist, involved with mind control experimentation at McGill
• Thomas Chang - invented and developed world's first artificial cell
• Margaret Ridley Charlton - historian, pioneer librarian, and one of the founders of the Medical Library Association
• Sherry Chou - Neurologist and critical care physician at the University of Pittsburgh
• Sujit Choudhry - constitutionalist and Dean of the University of California Berkeley, School of Law
• Thomas H. Clark - paleontologist; namesake of the mineral Thomasclarkite
• Terence Coderre - Professor of Medicine and the Harold Griffith Chair in Anaesthesia Research at McGill University
• Robert W. Cox - 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 ; healthcare consultant
• Augusto Claudio Cuello - Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Charles E. Frosst/Merck Chair in Pharmacology at McGill University
• 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
• Arti Dhand - associate professor at the University of Toronto, Department for the Study of Religion
• Vibert Douglas - astrophysicist
• Charles R. Drew - physician and professor
• Hamid Etemad - professor of international business; business guru and researcher
• David A. Freedman - statistician; professor at University of California, Berkeley
• Grover Furr - professor of English literature; historical negationist and apologist for Joseph Stalin
• James E. Gill - 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
• Leo Goldberger - psychologist, professor at New York University and director of the Research Center for Mental Health, Holocaust survivor
• Phil Gold - Canadian physician, scientist, and professor. In 1968, he co-discovered the carcinoembryonic antigen, which resulted in a blood test used in the diagnosis and management of people with cancer.
• David Goltzman - endocrinologist, Professor of Medicine and Physiology, and A.G. Massabki Chair in Medicine at McGill University
• Shyamala Gopalan - breast cancer researcher in the Faculty of Medicine and McGill-affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research; mother of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris
• Stevan Harnad - Canada Research Chair, Cognitive Sciences; open access and animal rights activist
• S. I. Hayakawa - linguist, U.S. Senator, and 9th President of San Francisco State University
• Karen S. Haynes - American college administrator and social worker, former president of University of Houston–Victoria, and current president of California State University San Marcos
• Donald Olding Hebb - father of cognitive psychobiology; pioneer in artificial intelligence; developed concept of Hebbian learning
• John Hemming - explorer
• Janyne M. Hodder - educational psychologist and 6th President of the University of the Bahamas
• Alma Howard - radiobiologist
• Fumiko Ikawa-Smith - archaeologist in East Asian and Japanese archaeology & administrator, Director of the Centre for East Asian Studies and Associate Vice-Principal of McGill University.
• 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
• Frances Oldham Kelsey - pharmacologist and physician
• Raymond Klibansky - philosopher
• Harold Laski - political theorist
• Charles Philippe Leblond - pioneer of stem cells, inventor of autoradiography
• Daniel Levitin - cognitive psychologist
• Pericles Lewis - founding President of Yale-NUS College; professor of English and comparative literature at Yale University
• Abraham S. Luchins - American psychologist known for his research on mental sets
• Michael Mackey - professor of physiology and Joseph Morley Drake Chair in Physiology at McGill 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
• Michael Meaney - pioneer of epigenetics; James McGill Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology and Neurosurgery.
• Ronald Melzack - developed the McGill Pain Questionnaire
• John S. Meyer - neurology professor and Chairman of the U.S. President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke
• 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
• Mortimer Mishkin - renowned neuropsychologist for path-breaking work on brain-processing of memories and 2009 National Medal of Science recipient
• Albert Moll - professor of psychiatry; pioneer of psychiatric day treatment
• William Reginald Morse, MD, one of four medical missionaries who founded the West China Union University in Chengdu, Sichuan, in 1914; went on to become dean of the medical faculty and, later, assistant researcher at the Peabody Museum, where he advanced studies of Chinese and Tibetan medicine
• E. R. Ward Neale - geologist, professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland
• Louis Nirenberg - mathematician; 1995 National Medal of Science recipient and winner of 2015 Abel Prize
• 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; 15th President & Vice-Chancellor of The University of British Columbia; 28th President of The University of Cincinnati; discovered NFX1 RING Finger motif; showed HMGA2 truncation drives mesenchymal tumor development
• William Osler - 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
• Gilles Paradis - public health and preventive medicine physician at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, as well as professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health and Strathcona Chair in Epidemiology at McGill University.
• Arthur Lindo Patterson - physicist
• Jordan Peterson - clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and psychology professor currently at the University of Toronto
• Kevin Petrecca - neurosurgical oncologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute, chief of neurosurgery at the MUHC, associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery and William Feindel Chair in Neuro-Oncology at McGill University
• Wilder Penfield - neurosurgery pioneer; first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Montreal Neurological Hospital, which are affiliated with McGill University
• Stephen R. Perry, John J. O'Brien Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
• Steven Pinker - cognitive psychologist; author of The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works
• Susan Pinker - psychologist; author of The Sexual Paradox
• Jeremy Quastel - mathematician specializing in probability theory and PDEs, currently professor at the University of Toronto
• Judah Hirsch Quastel - biochemist; pioneer in neurochemistry and soil metabolism; Director of the McGill University-Montreal General Hospital Research Institute
• Amélie Quesnel-Vallée - associate professor with joint appointment in the Departments of Sociology and Epidemiology, and Canada Research Chair in Policies and Health Inequalities at McGill
• Fazlur Rahman - Islamic philosopher
• James R. Reid - theologian and president of College of Montana and Montana State University
• 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
• Hans Selye — Endocrinologist, pioneered studies on the effects of stress on the human body.
• 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
• Judith N. Shklar - political scientist, John Cowles Professor of Government at Harvard, and first woman president of the American Political Science Association
• Vera Shlakman - professor of economics, noted Marxist scholar, and author of famous book on women factory workers
• Jenni Sidey - Canadian astronaut, engineer, and lecturer.
• Upinder Singh - Indian historian
• Nahum Sonenberg - Israeli Canadian microbiologist and biochemist. He is a James McGill professor of biochemistry
• M. R. Srinivasan - Indian Nuclear Physicist
• Moshe Szyf – geneticist, pioneer of epigenetics; James McGill professor of pharmacology and therapeutics.
• Charles Taylor - writer, philosopher, and political theorist; 2007 winner of the Templeton Prize
• Marc Tessier-Lavigne - 11th and current president of Stanford University; former president of Rockefeller University; Rhodes scholar
• Lionel Tiger - best-selling author; Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University
• Peter Todd - former dean of McGill's Desautels Faculty of Management, dean of HEC Paris
• Stephen Toope - Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, President of the University of British Columbia
• Bruce Trigger - OC OQ FRSC archaeologist, anthropologist, and ethnohistorian. James McGill Professor, Professor McGill University.
• Tom Velk - monetary economics and public policy professor
• Jacob Viner - professor; early leader of the Chicago school of economics
• Alice Vrielink - Head of Discipline in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Western Australia; conducts research in crystallography
• Immanuel Wallerstein - former professor of sociology ; political scientist, known for the World Systems Theory
• Jagannath Wani - statistics professor and philanthropist focusing on mental illness awareness
• Frank T. M. White - Foundation Professor, Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, University of Queensland; Macdonald Professor of Mining Engineering and Applied Geophysics, McGill University
• Franklin White - scholar-practitioner; former president, Canadian Public Health Association; 1997 Medal of Honor from the Pan American Health Organization
• Tim Wu - professor at Columbia Law School; adviser for the New York State Attorney General
• Bernard P. Zeigler - a Canadian engineer and emeritus professor at the University of Arizona, known for inventing Discrete Event System Specification in 1976.
• Hans Zingg - Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Wyeth-Ayerst Chair in Women's Health at McGill

  Business and media

• Suhayya Abu-Hakima - co-founder and CEO of AmikaNow! and Amika Mobile Corporation
• Vinod Agarwal - founder and former chairman of LogicVision
• Suroosh Alvi - journalist, filmmaker, and co-founder of VICE magazine
• Aldo Bensadoun - founder and CEO of the ALDO Group
• 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
• Gad Elmaleh - French comedian
• Charles Bronfman - philanthropist; former Co-Chairman of Seagram Distillers
• Edgar Bronfman, Sr. - former CEO of Seagram
• John Cleghorn - former chairman of the Royal Bank of Canada, the largest bank in Canada; currently chairman of SNC-Lavalin group
• Jim Coleman, Canadian sports journalist, writer and press secretary
• Jean Coutu - businessman; billionaire; founder and CEO of Jean Coutu Group
• Paul Desmarais, Jr. - chairman of Power Corporation
• Ritika Dutt - CEO & co-founder of Botler AI
• Darren Entwistle - president and chief executive officer of Telus
• Adam Gopnik - staff writer for The New Yorker magazine
• Céline Galipeau - weekday anchor of Ici Radio-Canada Télé's Le Téléjournal
• 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
• 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
• Shahid Mahmood - political cartoonist
• Scott McDonald - CEO of Oliver Wyman
• Thomas S. Monahan - president and CEO of CIBC Mellon
• Claude Mongeau - CEO and president of the Canadian National Railway
• Harley Morenstein - host and co-creator of Epic Meal Time
• Andy Nulman - co-founder of Just for Laughs
• Mark Phillips - CBS News London bureau correspondent since 1982, formerly CBC News London correspondent
• Elizabeth Plank - Vox video blogger and online journalist
• Robert Rabinovitch - president and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• Jade Raymond video game producer at Ubisoft; co-host of G4TV's Electronic Playground
• Matthew Rosenberg - Washington correspondent at The New York Times, and national security analyst for CNN
• John Roth - former CEO of Nortel Networks
• Calin Rovinescu - president and CEO of Air Canada
• 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
• Savik Shuster - TV journalist working for Ukrainian television
• Evan Solomon - political journalist and radio host on Sirius XM Canada, columnist for Maclean's
• Helga Stephenson - interim CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television
• Ziya Tong - television personality and co-host of Daily Planet
• Lorne Trottier - founder of Matrox Electronic Systems
• Ivana Trump - Czech-American businesswoman and former fashion model, ex-wife of President Donald Trump
• Les Vadasz - founding member of Intel Corporation
• Zain Verjee - co-anchor of CNN International's European morning program World Report
• 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

  Politics and government

Canadian politicians and civil servants

Governors-General of Canada

• Julie Payette - current Governor General of Canada; former Canadian Space Agency astronaut
• David Lloyd Johnston - Governor General of Canada, 2010–2017; former McGill principal; former head of the Board of Overseers at Harvard University; former president of the University of Waterloo, 1999–2011

  Prime ministers

• Sir John Abbott - third Prime Minister of Canada and first to be born in Canada
• Sir Wilfrid Laurier - seventh Prime Minister of Canada
• Justin Trudeau - 23rd and current prime minister of Canada

• Chris Alexander - Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, 2013–2015; previously Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, 2003–2005
• Warren Allmand - 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 - Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 2013–2015
• Jim Carr - Minister of Natural Resources, 2015–
• Brooke Claxton - Minister of Health, 1943–1946; Minister of National Defence, 1946–1954
• Irwin Cotler - Minister of Justice and Attorney General, 2003–2006
• Charles Doherty - Minister of Justice and Attorney General, 1911–1921
• Charles Drury - Minister of Finance, Defence, Public Works, Industry, President of the Treasury Board
• Sydney Arthur Fisher — Minister of Agriculture, 1896–1911
• Karina Gould - Minister of Democratic Institutions, 2017–present
• Herb Gray - Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, 1997–2002
• Don Johnston - Minister of State for Science and Technology, Minister of State for Economic and Regional Development, and Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
• Robert Layton - Minister of State for Mines, 1984-1988
• Cyrus Macmillan - Minister of Fisheries, 1930
• John McCallum - Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada since 2015; former Dean of the Faculty of Arts of McGill University
• Catherine McKenna - Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, 2015–
• Frederick Debartzch Monk - Minister of Public Works, 1911–1912
• Joe Oliver - Minister of Finance, 2014–2015
• Jim Peterson - Minister of International Trade, 2003–2006
• Greg Rickford - Minister of Natural Resources, 2014–2015
• Richard Fadden - former Deputy Minister of National Defence and National Security Advisor
• John Joseph Curran - first Solicitor General of Canada

  Supreme Court justices

• Douglas Abbott - appointed to the Court in 1954, previously Minister of National Defence and Minister of Finance
• Ian Binnie - appointed to the Court in 1998, formerly Associate Deputy Minister of Justice
• Louis-Philippe de Grandpré - appointed to the Court in 1974, formerly president of the Canadian Bar Association
• Marie Deschamps - appointed to the Court in 2002, previously a Judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal
• Morris Fish - appointed to the Court in 2003, previously a Judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal
• Clément Gascon - appointed to the Court in 2014, previously a Judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal
• Désiré Girouard - appointed to the Court in 1895, previously member of Parliament
• Charles Gonthier - served on the Supreme Court 1989–2003
• Gerald Le Dain - appointed to the Court in 1984, previously a Judge on the Federal Court of Appeal
• Sheilah Martin, - appointed to the Court in 2017, previously judge of the Court of Appeal of Alberta
• Gérald Fauteux – appointed to the Court in 1949, previously dean of the Faculty of Law.
• Pierre-Basile Mignault - appointed to the Court in 1918, previously President of the Bar of Montréal
• Thibaudeau Rinfret - appointed to the Court in 1924, previously a Judge on the Superior Court of Quebec
• Nicholas Kasirer - appointed to the court in 2019, previously a judge on the Quebec Court of Appeal

  Senators

• Albert Joseph Brown - Senator for Wellington, 1932–1938
• Henry Joseph Cloran - Senator for Victoria, Quebec, 1903–1928
• Sheila Finestone - appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1999
• Joan Fraser - appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1998
• Linda Frum - appointed to the Senate in 2009
• Marc Gold - current Senator for Stadacona, Quebec
• Sir William Hales Hingston - Senator for Rougemont, 1896–1907; Mayor of Montreal, 1875–1877
• James Horace King - Leader of the Government in the Senate, 1942–1945
• Michael Meighen - appointed to the Senate in 1990
• Vivienne Poy - appointed to the Senate in 1998
• Larry Smith - appointed to the Senate in 2011 and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
• Leo Housakos - incumbent Senator for Wellington, Quebec and former Speaker of the Senate of Canada
• James Edwin Robertson - Member of Parliament and Senator for Prince Edward Island
• Michael Pitfield - Senator for Ottawa-Vanier, Ontario
• Joan Fraser - Senator for De Lorimier, Quebec
• John Caswell Davis - Senator for Winnipeg, Manitoba
• Charles Boucher de Boucherville - third Premier of Quebec and Senator for Montarville, Quebec
• Sarto Fournier - Member of Parliament, 38th Mayor of Montreal, and Senator for De Lanaudière, Quebec
• Théodore Robitaille - Member of Parliament, and Senator for Gulf, Quebec

  Members of Parliament (House of Commons)

• Thomas Mulcair - former leader of the New Democratic Party, Leader of the Opposition, and current Member of Parliament for Outremont, Quebec
• Marc Miller - current Member of Parliament for Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Sœurs, Quebec, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown–Indigenous Relations
• David Lametti - current Member of Parliament for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development
• Arif Virani - current Member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park, Ontario, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
• Murray Rankin - current Member of Parliament for Victoria, British Columbia
• Anthony Housefather - current Member of Parliament for Mount Royal, Quebec and Chairman of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights
• Albina Guarnieri - Member of Parliament for Mississauga East, Ontario
• George MacKinnon - Member of Parliament for Kootenay East, British Columbia
• Christophe-Alphonse Geoffrion - Member of Parliament for Verchères, Quebec
• Joseph Alexandre Camille Madore - Member of Parliament for Hochelaga, Quebec
• Jack Layton - former leader of the New Democratic Party, Leader of the Opposition and Member of Parliament for Toronto—Danforth, Ontario
• Samuel William Jacobs - Member of Parliament for George-Étienne Cartier, Quebec
• Alan Macnaughton - former Member of Parliament and Speaker of the House of Commons
• Thomas d'Arcy McGee - a father of the Canadian Confederation and prominent Member of Parliament for Montreal West, Quebec
• The "McGill 5" - five then-current McGill students who were elected as NDP MPs in 2011:
• * Charmaine Borg - MP for Terrebonne-Blainville
• * Matthew Dubé - current MP for Beloeil—Chambly
• * Mylène Freeman - MP for Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel
• * Laurin Liu - MP for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles
• * Jamie Nicholls - MP for Vaudreuil-Soulanges

  Auditors-general

• Denis Desautels - auditor general, 1991–2001
• Sheila Fraser - first female auditor general of Canada

  Ambassadors

• Arnold Heeney - ambassador to the United States and NATO
• Guillermo Rishchynski - ambassador to the United Nations, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia
• Ralph Lysyshyn - ambassador to Russia
• Sydney David Pierce - ambassador to Brazil, Belgium, Luxembourg, Mexico, and the OECD
• Yves Fortier - ambassador to the United Nations
• Chris Alexander - ambassador to Afghanistan
• David Wright - Ambassador to Spain and NATO
• Andrew McNaughton - ambassador to the United Nations and President of the UN Security Council
• Frederic Bertley - ambassador to Senegal
• James R. Wright - ambassador to the United Kingdom
• Robert Fowler - ambassador to the United Nations and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
• Élaine Ayotte - ambassador and permanent delegate to the UNESCO
• Gordon Smith - Ambassador to the European Union and NATO
• John McCallum - ambassador to China

  Heads of financial institutions

• Graham Towers - first and founding Governor of the Bank of Canada and Governor for Canada at the International Monetary Fund
• Marcel Massé - Member of Parliament, President of the Treasury Board, and President of the Canadian International Development Agency
• Sylvia Ostry - chairman, Economic Council of Canada

  Others

• Gerald Butts - current Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada, 2015-
• Sir Charles Boucher de Boucherville - Premier of Quebec, 1874–1878, 1891–1892
• Ian Brodie - Chief of Staff in the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 2006–2008
• Neil Brown, Q.C. - Alberta MLA
• Rosemary Brown - first Black Canadian woman to be elected to a provincial legislature
• James Campbell Clouston - Canadian officer in the British Royal Navy, who acted as pier-master during the Dunkirk evacuation; inspiration for Kenneth Branagh's pier-master character in Christopher Nolan's 2017 film Dunkirk
• May Cutler - first woman to serve as Mayor of Westmount, Quebec ; founder of Tundra Books; first female Canadian publisher of children's books
• Mark Heyck, - current mayor of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
• Sir Charles Peers Davidson - Chief Justice of the Quebec Superior Court, 1912–1915
• Henry Thomas Duffy - Minister of Public Works and Treasurer of Quebec
• Brian Gallant - Premier of New Brunswick, 2014-
• R. A. E. Greenshields - Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec, 1929–1942
• Don Johnston - former Secretary General of the OECD
• Carlos Leitão - Minister of Finance of Quebec, 2014-
• David Lewis - Rhodes Scholar and former leader of the New Democratic Party
• Alexander Cameron Rutherford - first premier of Alberta, founder of the University of Alberta
• Bernard Shapiro - Federal Ethics Commissioner, 2004–2007
• Marie-Claire Kirkland Strover - first woman elected to the Quebec National Assembly, serving between 1966 and 1973.

  Foreign politicians and other government officials

Heads of state/government

• Timothy Harris - current Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis
• John Rankin - current Governor-General of Bermuda
• Ahmed Nazif - former prime minister of Egypt
• Daniel Oduber Quirós - former president of Costa Rica
• Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga - former president of Latvia; first female president of Latvia
• Joni Madraiwiwi - former acting president and vice-president of the Republic of Fiji and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Nauru
• Michael Manley - former prime minister of Jamaica, and former member of the Senate and House of Representatives in the Parliament of Jamaica
• Paula Cox - former prime minister of Bermuda

  Cabinet members

• Zbigniew Brzezinski - former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter
• Warren Randolph Burgess - former United States Undersecretary of the Treasury and United States Ambassador to NATO
• Miguel Castilla - current Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru
• Stephen Chebrot - current Minister for Transport in the Ugandan Cabinet and incumbent Member of the Parliament of Uganda, and former Ugandan Ambassador to India
• Peter Murcott Bunting - current Minister of National Security of Jamaica
• Bernard Chidzero - Minister of Finance of Zimbabwe, 1985-1995
• Peng Ming-min - senior adviser to the president of Taiwan, and former presidential candidate in Taiwan'
• Jacqui Quinn-Leandro - first female prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, and cabinet member
• Michael Žantovský - Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman of the Czech Republic
• Euan Howard, 4th Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal - British Minister of State for Defence, 1979–1981
• Jamaluddin Jarjis - former Malaysian ambassador to the United States and Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation
• Dov Yosef - Minister of Justice, Minister of Trade and Industry, and Minister of Health of the State of Israel
• Marko Pavliha - Minister of Transport of Slovenia
• Malik Amin Aslam - former Pakistani Minister of State for the Environment and current advisor to the prime minister for Climate Change
• Ian DeVere Archer - Secretary of Health and Social Security of Barbados and former chairman of Caribbean Airways

  Legislators

• Wong Yuk-shan - current Member of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China
• Gilbert Cooper - former mayor of Hamilton, Bermuda and member of the House of Assembly of Bermuda
• S. I. Hayakawa - U.S. Senator from California
• James McCleary - U.S. Congressman representing Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives
• Joseph J. O'Brien - U.S. Congressman representing New York in the United States House of Representatives
• Chase G. Woodhouse - U.S. Congresswoman representing Connecticut in the United States House of Representatives
• Carlos Heredia - Member of the Congress of Mexico and Governor of the State of Michoacán in Mexico
• Gordon Wasserman, Baron Wasserman - Member of the House of Lords in the British Parliament and life peer, and internationally recognized policing advisor
• Conrad Black - Member of the House of Lords in the British Parliament and life peer, and publisher of The Daily Telegraph, Chicago Sun-Times, The Jerusalem Post, National Post
• Euan Howard, 4th Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal - Member of the House of Lords in the British Parliament
• Andrew Hamilton Gault - Conservative Member of the House of Commons in the British Parliament for Taunton, Somerset, UK ; raised 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
• Maurice Alexander - Liberal Member of the House of Commons in the British Parliament for Southwark South East, UK
• Gavin Henderson, 2nd Baron Faringdon - former member of the London County Council, Chairman of the Fabian Society, 1960–1961
• Dhanayshar Mahabir - Senator of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
• Jacqui Quinn-Leandro - first woman elected to the House of Representatives, and later elected as Senator, in the Parliament of Antigua and Barbuda
• Ramasamy Palanisamy - current Member of the Parliament of Malaysia
• Hidipo Hamutenya - Member of the National Assembly of Namibia and cabinet member of Namibia
• Michael Žantovský - ambassador of Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic to the United States, Israel, and the United Kingdom, and Senator in the Parliament of the Czech Republic
• Rıza Türmen - former Member of the Turkish Parliament and Turkish Ambassador to Switzerland
• Dov Yosef - former member of the Israeli Parliament and Israel's Minister of Justice, Minister of Trade and Industry, and Minister of Health
• Peter Murcott Bunting - current Member of Parliament of Jamaica
• Marko Pavliha - Member of Parliament and Vice-President of the National Assembly of Slovenia

  Supreme Court/High Court Justices

• Akintola Olufemi Eyiwunmi - justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria
• Muhammad Khalid Masud - current justice of the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan
• Joni Madraiwiwi - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Nauru
• Chile Eboe-Osuji - judge and currently president of the International Criminal Court

  Heads of financial institutions

• Ernest Addison - banker, and current chairman and governor of the Central Bank of Ghana
• Kofi Wampah - former chairman and governor of the Bank of Ghana, and Chairman of the Central Bank Governors of West Africa
• DeLisle Worrell - former chairman and governor of the Central Bank of Barbados
• Kazi Abdul Muktadir - acting Governor, and current deputy governor of the State Bank of Pakistan
• P. Amarasinghe - deputy governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka
• Herbert Walker governor of the Bank of Jamaica

  Ambassadors

• John L. Withers II - ambassador of the United States to Albania
• Francis Terry McNamara - ambassador of the United States to Gabon, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipé
• John Larkindale - ambassador of New Zealand to Russia and Australia
• Kurt Jaeger - current Ambassador of Liechtenstein to the United States
• Rıza Türmen - ambassador of Turkey to Switzerland
• Michael Žantovský - ambassador of Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic to the United States, Israel, and the United Kingdom
• Jamaluddin Jarjis - ambassador of Malaysia to the United States
• Miguel Castilla - ambassador of Peru to the United States
• John Rankin - ambassador of the United Kingdom to Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Maldives

  Others

• Joanne Liu - international president of Médecins Sans Frontières
• Sam Nunberg - former presidential political advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump
• Ilya Sheyman - social activist and Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2012 election
• Morag Wise, Lady Wise - Scottish Senator of the College of Justice
• David Hackett - boarding school friend of Robert F. Kennedy; founder and head of Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 Volunteers in Service to America, the domestic U.S. 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

  Art, music, and film

• Ayal Adler - musician and composer
• 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
• John Austin Clark - music director and harpsichordist, co-founder of Bourbon Baroque
• 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
• Hume Cronyn - actor, The Seventh Cross, Cocoon; studied theatre, left for Broadway without completing his degree
• Hubert Davis - Oscar nominee for best documentary short subject
• Mackenzie Davis - actress and Canadian Screen Award nominee for The F Word
• 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
• Mary Fahl - singer and actress
• Colin Ferguson - actor, Eureka
• Karl Fischer - architect practicing in Montreal and New York City
• 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
• 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
• Maxwell M. Kalman - architect, designed Canada's first mall Norgate shopping centre
• 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 McGarrigle - musician and folk-singer
• Dorothy McIlwraith - editor of Weird Tales, 1940–54
• Casey McKinnon - actress
• Sophia Michahelles - pageant puppet designer and co-artistic director, Processional Arts Workshop
• Raymond Moriyama - architect
• Suniti Namjoshi - writer
• Heather O'Neill - writer
• Alisa Palmer - playwright and theatre director
• 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
• 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
• Donald Steven - Juno Award and Jules Léger Prize winning composer
• Philippe Tatartcheff - Swiss-born poet and songwriter notable for writing songs in French with Anna and Kate McGarrigle
• Ruth Taylor - poet
• Gentile Tondino - artist
• J. Torres - comic book writer
• Zineb Triki - actress
• Jessica Trisko - 2007 Miss Earth titleholder
• Ken Vandermark - jazz saxophonist and MacArthur Foundation "genius award" winner
• Rufus Wainwright - recording artist, musician
• William Weintraub - author, journalist and filmmaker
• Robert Stanley Weir - author of the English words to "O, Canada"
• Matthew White - countertenor
• Jan Wong - Globe and Mail columnist ; author of books including award-winning Red China Blues and Jan Wong's China
• Royal Wood - singer/songwriter

  Architects

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
• Thomas Chang - creator of the first artificial cell
• James Creighton - considered the originator of North American ice hockey rules
• Charles R. Drew - 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 - inventor of the MacPherson respirator gas mask during World War I
• Paul Moller - inventor of the Moller Skycar, a VTOL aircraft

  Sports

• Betty Archdale - former captain of English women's cricket team
• Mike Babcock - NHL coach, formerly of the Toronto Maple Leafs; first and as of 2016 only coach to be a member of the Triple Gold Club, having won the Stanley Cup, Olympic gold medal for men's hockey, and the International Ice Hockey Federation Ice Hockey World Championship
• Russ Blinco - Montreal Maroons centre; 1935 NHL Rookie of the Year
• Guy Boucher - former head coach of the Ottawa Senators
• George Burnett - former head coach for the Edmonton Oilers
• Doug Carpenter - former head coach for the Toronto Maple Leafs and New Jersey Devils
• Randy Chevrier - former NFL and CFL player
• J. P. Darche - American football long snapper
• Ken Dryden - 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 for the Kansas City Chiefs, graduated from McGill's Medical School in 2018; first medical doctor and first Quebecer to play and win the Super Bowl.
• Phil Edwards - 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 - 2006 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle skiing
• George Hodgson - Canadian Olympic men's swim team ; McGill's first athlete to win an Olympic gold medal; first Canadian to win two Olympic gold medals
• 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
• Charline Labonté - 2006 Olympic gold medalist in women's ice hockey
• R. Tait McKenzie - pioneer in college physical education; sculptor; physician
• James Naismith - inventor of basketball; University of Kansas coach; namesake of six NCAA college basketball awards
• Kevin O'Neill - former head coach of the Toronto Raptors; former head coach for USC Trojans men's basketball.
• Frank Patrick - wrote much of the NHL rule book
• Hon. Sydney David Pierce - 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
• Silver Quilty, Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductee, Canada's Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Canadian Amateur Hockey Associaiton president
• Samantha Rapoport - NFL Director of Player Development, former Canada women's national football team and Montreal Blitz quarterback
• Kim St-Pierre - Canadian Olympic women's hockey team, McGill's first female athlete to become an Olympic gold medallist
• 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 - eleven-year veteran of Canadian Davis Cup team in the 1920s and 1930s
• David Zilberman - Canadian Olympic heavyweight wrestler

  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 the Bengal Lancers
• Dr. Robert Richardson, played by Lew Ayres, Johnny Belinda
• 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" by Mao Zedong; medical professor; became Red Army's medical chief and trained thousands of Chinese as medics and doctors; died in 1939 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
• Victor Dzau - president of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences
• 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
• Bertha Hosang Mah, first Chinese woman to graduate from a Canadian university
• 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
• 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 ; the Quebec bar did not admit women until 1941
• Neville Maxwell - British journalist; author of notable book on the Sino-Indian War
• Nancy Morris - first female rabbi in Scotland
• William Reginald Morse, Canadian author, medical doctor, and medical missionary in China
• Natasha Negovanlis - actress; singer; writer; host; LGBTQIA icon
• Madeleine Parent, Canadian labour, feminist and aboriginal rights activist
• 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 - 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
• Robert Thirsk - astronaut
• Dafydd Williams - astronaut
• Alanna Devine - founder of McGill Student Animal Legal Defence Fund and director of Animal Advocacy