Notable alumni

Arts and media

Television and Radio

• David Bernad, BA’04, is an Emmy Award, Golden Globe and PGA winning producer. His previous projects include both feature films like Zombieland 2 and The Mule, as well as television series like the highly successful The White Lotus and The White House Plumbers.
• Deborah Chow, BA’96, is a TV and film director and producer. Some of her most recent projects include directing episodes for The Mandalorian and the entire Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries.
• Actress Mackenzie Davis, BA’10, played a gifted software developer in the AMC series Halt and Catch Fire. She also appeared in The Martian, Tully and Terminator: Dark Fate. Her most recent project was the HBO Max series Station Eleven.
• Magda Grace, BCL/JD’11, is the head of Amazon’s Prime Video for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Louis Morissette, BCom’95, is an actor, writer, and producer for both TV and film, with credits including The Guide to the Perfect Family, Plan B, and the sketch show Bye Bye.
• Omar Sachedina, BA’04, is the Chief News Anchor and Senior Editor for CTV National News. He is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years of experience.
• Best known for his starring role as Captain James T. Kirk in the television show Star Trek, William Shatner, BCom’52, DLitt’11, earned back-to-back Emmy Awards for his portrayal of eccentric attorney Denny Crane on the television series’ The Practice and Boston Legal. Shatner is the only actor to ever win consecutive Emmy awards for playing the same character on two different shows.
• Allan Scott, BA’61, is a TV and film producer and an award-winning writer. His projects include the TV series The Queen’s Gambit, as well as the films The Witches and Don’t Look Now, which he also co-wrote.
• Gail Simmons, BA’98, is a culinary expert and food writer known to millions of TV viewers for her work as a judge on the Emmy Award-winning Top Chef.

Media and Gaming

• Imran Amed, BCom’97, is the founder, CEO & editor-in-chief of The Business of Fashion, a media company with a focus on fashion and luxury goods.
• Jesse Brown, BA’00, is a journalist and the founder, publisher and host, of the Canadaland podcast network.
• Alan Emtage, BSc’87, MSc’91, created Archie, the first Internet search engine which, at one time, attracted half the web traffic in Canada.
• Elizabeth Plank, BA’10, has been the executive producer and host of several critically acclaimed digital series at Vox Media and NBC News. She has recently co-hosted the podcasts The Man Enough Podcast and Synced.
• Jade Raymond, BSc’98, is a video game executive and a former vice president at Google who played a major role in the launch of the Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs franchises.

Newspapers and Magazines

• A staff writer and essayist at The New Yorker since 1986, Adam Gopnik, BA’80, is the author of such best-selling books as Paris to the Moon and Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York.
• Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, Charles Krauthammer, BA'70, DLitt’93, was a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post and frequently contributed to Time, The Weekly Standard and The New Republic.
• A co-founder and former head of Citytv, Moses Znaimer, BA’63, is the founder and CEO of ZoomerMedia Limited and the publisher of Zoomer Magazine.

Film

• Jennifer Baichwal, BA'90, MA'96, is an award-winning documentary filmmaker of such films as Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark.
• Together with his scriptwriting partner Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, BA’05, has written the screenplays of such films as Superbad, Pineapple Express, and This is the End.
• Nancy Grant, BA’06, is a film producer who frequently collaborates with director Xavier Dolan. Their film Mommy swept both the Canadian Screen Awards and the Quebec Jutra Awards in 2015 and received the César (the French equivalent of the Oscar) as best foreign film.
• Robert Lantos, BA’70, DLitt’00, has produced some of Canada's most critically-acclaimed films, including David Cronenberg’s Crash and Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter.
• Joe Medjuck, BA’65, is a successful Hollywood producer whose credits include Old School, Up in the Air, Hitchcock and Ghostbusters II.
• Edward Saxon, BA’82, is the Oscar-winning producer of such films as The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia and Adaptation.

Literature

• David Bezmozgis, BA’96, earned widespread acclaim for his first book, Natasha and Other Stories, winning the Commonwealth First Book Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for best first collection of short stories in the English language. His books, The Free World (2011), The Betrayers (2014) and Immigrant City (2019), were shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
• Ned Blackhawk, BA’92, is a novelist and Professor of History and American Studies at Yale. His book The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History was the 2023 winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction in the U.S.
• Dominique Fortier, PhD’03, was the 2016 winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for French fiction for Au péril de la mer. She received the Prix Renaudot in 2020 for Les villes de papier.
• Sean Michaels, BA’04, is a novelist. His debut novel, Us Conductors, won the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award.
• Heather O’Neill, BA’94, is a novelist and short story writer whose novels have been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her first novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, won the CBC Canada Reads competition in 2007. Most recently, she was named the winner of the Writers’ Trust Fellowship in 2019.

Art and Architecture

• Internationally celebrated Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, BArch’50, LLD’75, was the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions for his innovative designs. His works include such buildings and complexes as Robson Square in Vancouver, BC, the Canadian Chancery in Washington, DC, and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA.
• Margaret Grenier, BSc’97, is the award-winning Executive and Artistic Director of the Dancers of Damelahamid, an acclaimed Indigenous dance company in B.C.
• Architect Raymond Moriyama, MArch’57, has received widespread acclaim for his work, which includes the Ontario Science Centre (1964), the Bata Shoe Museum (1991), the National Museum of Saudi Arabia (1999), and the Canadian War Museum (2005).
• The visionary architect behind Montreal's “Habitat” for Expo 67, Moshe Safdie, BArch’61, LLD’82, has designed some of Canada's best-known buildings, including the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver's Library Square and the rebuild of Toronto's Pearson Airport. He was awarded the Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.

Music

• Darcy James Argue, BMus’97, is the composer and conductor for the Secret Society, an innovative New York-based 18-piece jazz band that has earned Grammy and Juno nominations for their albums.
• With 70 Top 40 hits in the US and 52 Top 40 hits in the UK, Burt Bacharach, Dip AMus’48, DMus’72, was one of the most important composers of popular music of the twentieth century. In addition to having his songs performed by huge contemporary artists, his music won six Grammys, three Oscars, an Emmy, and was nominated for a Tony for best musical for 1970’s Promises, Promises.
• Acclaimed novelist, poet, singer and songwriter, Leonard Cohen, BA’55, DLitt’92, was one of the most widely recognized Canadian artists of the late twentieth century. He was awarded the Companion of the Order of Canada in 2003, Canada’s highest civilian honour, and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. He was awarded a posthumous Grammy for Best Rock Performance in 2018.
• Caity Gyorgy, MMus’22, is the two-time Juno Award winner for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year in 2022 and 2023.
• ​Christine Jensen, BMus’94, MMus’06, is a jazz saxophonist and composer and the leader of the Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra. The group has won two Juno Awards for Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year.
• Richard King, MMus’91, an associate professor with the Schulich School of Music’s Sound Recording Program, is one of the most in-demand recording engineers in the world of classical music. His fourteen-time Grammy Award-winning work has included collaborations with such performers as Yo-Yo Ma and Renée Fleming.
• Jarrett Martineau, BA’06, is the co-founder of RPM Records and host of CBC Radio’s Reclaimed, both of which showcase Indigenous music in all its diverse forms.
• Sam Roberts, BA’98, is a Juno award-winning musician whose 2002 debut CD, The Inhuman Condition, is one of the bestselling independent releases in Quebec and Canadian music history.
• Daniel Seligman, BA’00, is the co-founder and creative director of the POP Montreal music festival.

Sciences

Nobel Prize winners

• Willard Boyle BSc'47, MSc'48 and PhD'50 received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, an honour that he shared with his Bell Laboratories collaborators George E. Smith and Charles K. Kao. The Prize was awarded for the 1969 invention of the charged-couple device (CCD), a semiconductor circuit capable of sensing light and images and the core technology behind the digital photography revolution.
• Val Fitch, BEng'48, DSc'87, an American nuclear physicist, was co-recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for a 1964 experiment that disproved the long-held theory that particle interaction should be indifferent to the direction of time. 
• David Hubel, BSc'47, MDCM'51, was co-recipient of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his groundbreaking work on visual perception.
• Rudolph Marcus, BSc'43, PhD'46, received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his theory of electron transfer.
• Endocrinologist Andrew Victor Schally, BSc'55, PhD'59, DSc'79, was the co-recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his research on hormones.
• Ralph Steinman, BSc'63, co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work in immunology and discovery of the key role dendritic cells play in immune processes
• Jack W. Szostak, BSc'72, was co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering how the body protects the chromosomes housing vital genetic code.
• John O’Keefe, PhD'67, was named co-winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in medicine. Cell research by O’Keefe and a pair of Norwegian scientists has led to the discovery of the brain’s positioning system, answering the centuries-old question of how we navigate the space around us.

Astronauts

• Chief astronaut for the Canadian Space Agency from 2000 to 2007, Julie Payette, BEng'86, DSc’03, is the second Canadian woman to have flown in space and the first to board the International Space Station.
• David Saint-Jacques, MedResident’07, began a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station in November, 2018. He circled the globe 3,264 times and became the fourth astronaut to conduct a spacewalk.
• Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons, BEng'11 worked as an assistant professor in internal combustion engines at the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge and is currently training and joined the Canadian space Program in 2017. She received the title of astronaut in 2020 and is currently awaiting a mission.
• Engineer and physician Robert Thirsk, MDCM'82, is a former Canadian Space Agency astronaut who holds the Canadian records for the longest space flight and the most time spent in space. On May 9, 2014, it was announced that he was elected the University of Calgary’s 13th Chancellor.
• A specialist in emergency medicine, Dave Williams, BSc'76, MSc'83, MDCM'83, DSc’07, was the seventh Canadian to go into space and set the Canadian record for total number of spacewalks. He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2013.

Trailblazers

• Bernard Belleau, PhD'50, contributed to the development of Lamivudine, a drug used in the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis B infection. Belleau was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1981.
• In 2018, Yoshua Bengio, BEng’86, MSc’88, PhD’91, was the co-recipient of the A.M. Turing Award, frequently referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing” in recognition of his work in the field of deep learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that has played a pivotal role in major improvements in a wide range of technologies including image recognition systems, video analysis systems and speech recognition systems.
• Tim Bliss, BSc’62, PhD’67, is a British neuroscientist whose research has explored the life-long plasticity of the brain. He was a co-recipient of the 2016 Brain Prize, the world’s most valuable award for brain research.
• In 1957, while still an undergraduate at McGill, Thomas Chang, BSc'57, MDCM'61, PhD'65, invented the world's first artificial cell. Currently the Director of the Artificial Cells and Organs Research Centre at McGill, Chang was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1991.
• Charles R. Drew, MDCM'33, was an American medical pioneer who acted as an advisor for the Blood for Britain program of World War II. He researched blood transfusions extensively and aided in the development of large-scale blood banks.
• Phil Gold, BSc'57, MSc'57, PhD'65, helped discover and define the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), which is used in the diagnosis and management of cancer patients. He has received the Companion of the Order of Canada and was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2010.
• Colin MacLeod, MDCM'32, was part of the scientific team that first identified DNA as the hereditary material in genes.
• Brenda Milner, PhD’52, DSc’91, is the Dorothy Killam Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute. A pioneer in the field of cognitive neuroscience, her research demonstrated that the human brain has multiple memory systems that govern different functions.
• A renowned physician and medical historian, Sir William Osler, MDCM1872, LLD1895, was one of the first in the profession to emphasize the role of bedside teaching in the instruction of medical students. In 1889 he was appointed as the first physician-in-chief of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, becoming one of the school's first professors in medicine.
• Canadian astrophysicist Hubert Reeves, MSc'55, was a leading expert on the Big Bang theory and a well-known popularizer of science. He received the Companion of the Order of Canada in 2003. In honour of his achievements, The Association des communicateurs scientifiques du Québec created the literary Prix Hubert-Reeves in 2011. He was made the Grand Officer of Quebec in 2017.

Public service

Canadian Prime Ministers

• Sir John Abbott, BCL1854, was the third Prime Minister of Canada (1891-1892). He also served as the Mayor of Montreal from 1887 to 1888.
• A legendary orator and master of political compromise, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, BCL1864, was Canada's seventh Prime Minister (1896-1911).
• Justin Trudeau, BA’94, has served as Canada’s 23rd prime minister.

Political Leaders

• Arif Virani, BA'94, is the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.
• Lionel Carmant, Medical Resident’92, is Quebec’s Minister Responsible for Social Services.
• Eric Girard, BCom’89, is Quebec’s Minister of Finance and is responsible for relations with the English-speaking Quebec community. He was re-elected as Member for Groulx in October 2022.
• Karina Gould, BA'10, is the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.
• Marc Miller, BCL'01, LLB'01, is the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.
• Greg Rickford, BCL/LLB’05, is Ontario’s Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Minister of Northern Development.
• Ya’ara Saks, BA’95, is the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, and Associate Minister of Health.
• Jonathan Wilkinson, MA'92 is the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources.

Judges and Public Servants

• Philippe Dufresne, BCL’98, LLB’98, is the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
• Kirsten Hillman, BCL’93, LLB’93, is Canada’s Ambassador to the United States.
• Laverne Jacobs, BA’94, BCL’99, LLB’99, is a legal scholar and the first Canadian to serve on the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
• Justice Mahmud Jamal, BCL’93, LLB’93, is a Supreme Court of Canada justice since 2021.
• Justice Nicholas Kasirer, BCL'85, LLB'85, was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2019.
• Patricia Kosseim, BCom’87, BCL’92, LLB’92, is the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.
• Justice Sheilah Martin, BCL’81, LLB'81, was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2017.
• Lesley Weir, MLS’79 was recently reappointed as Librarian and Archivist of Canada in 2023, a position she's held since 2019.

Activists and Advocates

• Maria Eitel, BA’84, is the founding CEO and president of the Nike Foundation and the driving force behind its The Girl Effect, an initiative aimed at improving the lives of girls around the world who live in poverty.
• In 1948, John Humphrey, BCom'25, BA'27, BCL'29, PhD'45, LLD'76, was a young law professor on leave from McGill. It was during this time away that he wrote the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Joanne Liu, MDCM'91, IMHL'14, served two terms as the international president Médecins Sans Frontières from 2013 to 2019, a non-governmental organization that supplies emergency medical aid and experts to war-torn regions and countries in crisis. In 2015, Fortune magazine named her as one of the world’s great leaders, while Time included her on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
• A pioneering social activist, Madeleine Parent, BA'40, LLD'02, played a key role in the textile strikes in 1940s Quebec and in establishing Canadian unions. She was a founding member of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, where she represented Quebec for eight years.

University Presidents

• Frances Bronet, BSc(Arch)'77, BArch'78, BEng'79, is president of the Pratt Institute since 2018.
• Vivek Goel, MDCM’84, is the University of Waterloo’s seventh President and Vice-Chancellor.
• Rob Gordon, BEng'82, is president of the University of Windsor.
• Ed McCauley, PhD'83, is president of the University of Calgary.
• Santa Ono, PhD’91, is the president of the University of Michigan. He served as the president for University of Cincinnati from 2012 until 2016, and later as president of the University of British Columbia from 2016 until 2022.
• Tim Rahilly, MA'91, PhD'97, is president of Mount Royal University. He was the Vice-Provost, Students and International at Simon Fraser University from 2010 until 2019.
• Wendy Thomson, BSW'76, MSW'77, is vice-chancellor of the University of London.

Business and industry

• Noubar Afeyan, BEng’83, DSc’22, is the co-founder and chairman of Moderna, and the founder and CEO of the life sciences innovation firm Flagship Pioneering.
• Alain Bellemare, MBA'93, currently is the EVP and president-international at Delta Air Lines. He was president and CEO at Bombardier Inc. from 2015 until 2020.
• Aldo Bensadoun, BCom'64, LLD'12, is the executive chairman and founder of The Aldo Group.
• Mirko Bibic, BCom'89, is the CEO of BCE & Bell Canada.
• George Garvin Brown, BA’91, is the chairman of the Brown-Forman Corporation, one of the largest spirits companies in the world. Its brands include Jack Daniels, Finlandia Vodkas and Southern Comfort.
• Francis Davidson, a former philosophy and economics student, is the co-founder of CEO of Sonder, a tech and hospitality platform.
• Maria Della Posta, BCom’85, MBA’91, is the president of Pratt & Whitney since 2019.
• Robert Deluce, BSc’71, is the founder and executive chairman of Porter Airlines.
• Darren Entwistle, MBA'88, is the president and CEO of Telus Corporation.
• Jacques Farcy, EMBA’21, is president and CEO of the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ).
• Karim Habib, BEng’93, is an automotive designer and Kia’s executive vice-president and head of global design. He previously served in senior design positions at both BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
• Eric Lachance, BCom’96, is the CEO of Énergir.
• McGill University professor Henry Mintzberg, BEng'61, is an acclaimed management thinker, author and iconoclast, who has advised some of the world's largest corporations. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1997.
• Lauren Rathmell, BSc’10, is the co-founder of and Greenhouse Director of Lufa Farms.
• Lawrence Rossy, BA’65, is the founder and chairman emeritus of Dollarama, the leading dollar store operator in Canada with more than 1,000 locations across the country. He and his wife Cookie played an instrumental role in the creation of McGill’s Rossy Cancer Network.
• Wael Sawan, MEng’97, is the CEO of Shell as of January 2023.
• Seymour Schulich, BSc'61, MBA'65, DLitt’04, is a leading Canadian philanthropist and entrepreneur. He was made an Officer of Order of Canada in 2012.
• Yalmaz Siddiqui, BCom’92, is the vice president of Environmental Sustainability at The Walt Disney Company.
• Andrea Stairs, BA’96, is eBay's current vice president international markets and regulatory.
• Lorne Trottier, BEng'70, MEng'73, DSc’06, is an engineer, businessman and philanthropist. He is the president and co-founder of Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd.
• Les Vadasz, BEng'61, DSc’07, is one of the founding members of Intel Corporation, where he served as executive vice-president until 2003. He is currently a director at eSionic Corp.

Sports

• David Amber, BA’93, is a studio host for Hockey Night in Canada.
• Hockey player Ken Dryden, LLB'73, won six Stanley Cups in just eight seasons (1971-1979) as the goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens. He is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame. He became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2013.
• Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, MDCM’18, is a Super Bowl winner and one of four medical graduates ever to play in the NFL.
• Ram Padmanabhan, BA’90, is the Chicago Bulls’ chief operating officer and holds the position of general counsel.
• James Naismith, BA 1888, invented basketball in 1891 while teaching at Springfield College in Massachusetts. He also introduced the first football helmet.
• McGill Chancellor emeritus Dick Pound, BCom'62, BCL'67, LLD’09, has been part of the Olympic movement for more than 40 years. He has participated as an athlete, an advocate, as the Vice-President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as a former Chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency and as Chairman of the Olympic Broadcasting Services. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and an Officer of the National Order of Quebec.
• Samantha Rapoport, BEd'04 is the NFL's Senior Director for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.