List of McGill University people

Nobel Prize graduates and faculty members

Academy Award graduates

Pulitzer Prize graduates

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
• Jacques Balayla — physician, Quilligan Scholars
• 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
• Donald Ewen Cameron — psychiatrist, involved with mind control experimentation at McGill
• Thomas Chang — developed world's first artificial cell
• Margaret Ridley Charlton — one of the founders of the Medical Library Association
• Usman W. Chohan — president of the International Association of Hyperpolyglots; macroeconomist
• 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^[6]
• 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?
• David A. Freedman — statistician; professor at University of California, Berkeley
• Edgar Garcia-Rill (PhD 1973) — founder of the Center for Translational Neuroscience
• 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
• Karen S. Haynes — American college administrator and social worker, served as president of California State University San Marcos and University of Houston–Victoria
• Donald Olding Hebb — father of cognitive psychobiology; pioneer in artificial intelligence; developed concept of Hebbian learning
• John Hemming — explorer
• Alma Howard — radiobiologist
• 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
• Marc Tessier-Lavigne — President of Stanford University (2016-), President of Rockefeller University (2011-2016)
• Charles Philippe Leblond — pioneer of stem cells, inventor of autoradiography
• Daniel Levitin — cognitive psychologist
• Pericles Lewis — founding President of Yale-NUS College; former professor of English and comparative literature at Yale University
• Abraham S. Luchins — American psychologist known for his research on mental sets (Einstellung effect)
• 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;^[7] 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
• Jeffrey Mogil — neuroscientist and pain researcher
• Albert Moll — professor of psychiatry; pioneer of psychiatric day treatment
• E. R. Ward Neale — geologist, professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland^[8]
• Louis Nirenberg — mathematician; 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 (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
• Jordan Peterson — clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and psychology professor currently at the University of Toronto
• 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)^[9]
• 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
• Jenni Sidey — Canadian astronaut, engineer, and lecturer.
• Upinder Singh — Indian historian
• Stephen Alexander Smith — legal scholar and writer
• M. R. Srinivasan — Indian Nuclear Physicist^[10]
• Victoria Talwar — developmental psychologist
• Charles Taylor — writer, philosopher, and political theorist; 2007 winner of the Templeton Prize
• Marc Tessier-Lavigne — current president of Rockefeller University; Rhodes scholar; 11th president of Stanford University starting Sept 2016
• 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
• Peter Todd — former dean of McGill's Desautels Faculty of Management, dean of HEC Paris^[11]
• Stephen Toope — Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (2017-), President of the University of British Columbia (2006-2014)
• Bruce Trigger — anthropologist
• 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 (1971–1976);^[12] 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 (PAHO/WHO)
• Lydia White — linguist
• 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 (DEVS) in 1976.

Business and media

• Ritika Dutt - co-founder of Botler AI
• Suhayya Abu-Hakima — co-founder and CEO of AmikaNow! and Amika Mobile Corporation^[13]
• Vinod Agarwal — founder and former chairman of LogicVision ($100 million NASDAQ traded company)
• 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^[14]
• Gad Elmaleh — French comedian
• Charles Bronfman — philanthropist; former Co-Chairman of Seagram Distillers^[15]
• Edgar Bronfman, Sr. — former CEO of Seagram^[16]
• John Cleghorn — former chairman of the Royal Bank of Canada, the largest bank in Canada; currently chairman of SNC-Lavalin group^[17]
• Jean Coutu — businessman; billionaire; founder and CEO of Jean Coutu Group
• Karl D'Cunha — international investment banker
• Paul Desmarais, Jr. — Chairman of Power Corporation^[18]
• Darren Entwistle — president and chief executive officer of Telus
• Adam Gopnik — staff writer for The New Yorker magazine
• 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)
• Hubert Lacroix — President and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• David Lawee — partner and founder of Google Capital
• Phil Lord — Montreal entrepreneur
• 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

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
• 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 (BA 2000) — 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 (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
• 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^[27]
• 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
• Shahid Mahmood — editorial cartoonist
• 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^[28]
• 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 (Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto; Canadian Embassy, Tokyo; Ontario Science Centre; Toronto Reference Library; Canadian War Museum; Saudi Arabian National Museum, Riyadh)
• Tomas Mureika — filmmaker, playwright, music critic
• 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^[29]
• 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
• 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
• Jessica Trisko — 2007 Miss Earth titleholder
• 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^[30]
• 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

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 (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 — NHL coach, currently 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 (Detroit, 2008), Olympic gold medal for men's hockey (2010, 2014), and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Ice Hockey World Championship
• Russ Blinco — Montreal Maroons centre; 1935 NHL Rookie of the Year
• Guy Boucher — 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
• 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 (MD 2018) — American football player for the Kansas City Chiefs, graduated from McGill's Medical School in 2018^[31]
• 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
• Charline Labonté (BEd - Physical Education) — 2006 Olympic gold medalist in women's ice hockey
• R. Tait McKenzie — pioneer in college physical education; sculptor; physician
• Kevin O'Neill — former head coach of the Toronto Raptors; current head coach of the USC Trojans
• 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)
• Samantha Rapoport — NFL Director of Player Development, former Canada women's national football team and Montreal Blitz quarterback
• 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 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 (1935)
• Dr. Robert Richardson, played by Lew Ayres, Johnny Belinda (1948)
• Dr. James Wilson, oncologist and best friend to main character Gregory House in the Fox Network TV drama House

Others

• 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
• Victor Dzau (MD) — 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 (McGill 1917)
• 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 (posthumously); the Quebec bar did not admit women until 1941, at which time Langstaff felt she was too old to join
• 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
• 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 (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 (BA 2015) — set world record number of 28 A grades in international O/IGCSE level exams along with University of Cambridge Top in the Region awards in O level Human and Social Biology, AS level General Paper^[32][33]
• Robert Thirsk — astronaut
• Dafydd Williams — astronaut