List of University of Alberta people

This is a list of distinguished people affiliated with the University of Alberta.

Current faculty

Ali A. Abdi – anthropologist and author; education and international development
Jordan Abel – poet
John Acorn – naturalist and science communicator
William Anselmi – professor of Italian and Italian-Canadian literature and culture
Florence Ashley – law professor, first openly transfeminine clerk of the Supreme Court of Canada
Lorne Babiuk – immunologist and virologist
Harold Barclay – anthropologist
Howard Bashaw – composer
Norman C. Beaulieu – electrical engineer
Ted Bishop – English professor
Stan Boutin – wildlife population ecologist
Mark Boyce – wildlife population ecologist
Ludwig N. Carbyn – wolf biologist
D. Jean Clandinin – education researcher
Kerry Courneya – kinesiologist
Philip J. Currie – palaeontologist
Patricia Demers – English professor
Jaroslaw Drelich – chemical engineer
Marilyn Dumont - poet
Janet A. W. Elliott – distinguished professor, faculty of engineering
Andrew Gow – historian of medieval and early modern Europe
Jonathan Locke Hart – author, literary scholar and historian^[1]
Peter Hide – sculptor
John-Paul Himka – historian of Eastern Europe
Greg Hollingshead – novelist and professor of English
Michael Houghton – Nobel laureate, co-discoverer of hepatitis C
Tasha Hubbard – filmmaker and scholar of Indigenous studies
Peter L. Hurd – biologist
Karim Jamal – business professor
Stephen A. Kent – sociologist
Jacobus Kloppers – organist
Natalie Kononenko – folklorist
Mark A. Lewis – mathematical ecologist and the Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Biology at the Centre for Mathematical Biology^[2]
Andy Liu – mathematician
Michael Lounsbury – Associate Dean of Research, Thornton A. Graham Chair and professor of strategic management, organizations and sociology
Austin Mardon – adjunct professor, recipient of Order of Canada
Jacob Masliyah – pioneer researcher in oil-sands extraction, recipient of Order of Canada^[3]
Takahiko Masuda – psychologist
Iman Mersal – poet, professor of Arabic literature and Middle Eastern and African studies
Robert Moody – mathematician, co-inventor of Kac–Moody algebra
Adam Morton – philosopher and member of the Royal Society of Canada^[4]^[5]
Don Page – theoretical cosmologist
Raj Pannu – sociologist, former head of the Alberta New Democratic Party
Graham Pearson – geologist
Mike Percy – economist
Leonard Ratzlaff – professor of choral music
Jia Rongqing – mathematician
Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa – director of the university's Center for Earth Observation Sciences
Jonathan Schaeffer – computer scientist and the Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence^[6]
James Shapiro – professor of surgery, medicine and surgical oncology; director of the Clinical Islet Transplant Program; leader of the team that developed the Edmonton protocol
Arya Mitra Sharma – Alberta Health Services endowed Chair in Obesity Research and Management
Toby Spribille – lichenologist
Richard S. Sutton – computer scientist
Frank Sysyn – historian of Eastern Europe
Darren Tanke – palaeontologist
Ban Tsui – professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine
D. Lorne Tyrrell – infectious disease physician
Allan Warrack – Department of Marketing, Business Economics and Law in the Faculty of Business and also serves as the Associate Dean of the Master of Public Management Program and Vice-President of Administration
Lana Whiskeyjack – artist and scholar of gender, sexuality, and Indigenous identity
Rudy Wiebe – novelist, two-time Governor General's Award-winner
Douglas Wiens – statistician
David S. Wishart – computational biologist
Toshifumi Yokota – medical geneticist
Osmar R. Zaiane – computer scientist
Vaclav Zizler – mathematician

Past faculty

Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi‘ – Islamic scholar
Jane Alexander – Anglican bishop
William Hardy Alexander – one of the university's first four professors; university historian^[7]
Violet Archer – composer and performer
Margaret-Ann Armour - chemist, supporter of women in science and engineering, member of the Order of Canada
Margaret Atwood – author of The Handmaid's Tale and many other novels, poetry collections, and works of criticism; two-time Booker Prize winner
George Ball - entomologist^[8]
Henry Beissel – poet and playwright
C. Fred Bentley – soil scientist
Stanford Blade – agronomist
Edward D. Blodgett – author and researcher in comparative literature, religion and film/media^[9]
Russell Brown – professor of law, Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Donald Cameron – academic administrator and member of the Senate of Canada
Clive Carruthers – classicist
Karl Clark – chemist and oil sands researcher
Jagannath Prasad Das – educational psychologist; member of the Order of Canada
John B. Dossetor – professor emeritus of medicine and bioethics
Pierre Flor-Henry – psychologist
Robert Folinsbee – geologist
Malcolm Forsyth – composer; Juno Award winner and member of the Order of Canada
John Gamon – plant physiologist and Earth observation scientist, developer of the Photochemical Reflectance Index
Victor Golla – linguist and anthropologist
Thomas B. Greenfield – scholar of educational administration
Allan Gregg – pollster and political advisor
Ronald Hamowy – libertarian intellectual
W. G. Hardy – classicist, writer, ice hockey administrator, member of the Order of Canada^[10]
H. A. Hargreaves – science fiction writer
Walter Edgar Harris – analytical chemist
Myer Horowitz – early childhood education scholar, president of the University of Alberta
Werner Israel – professor of physics and leader in the theory of black holes; Fellow of the Royal Society and Royal Society of Canada
George Ivany – president of the University of Saskatchewan
Martin Joos – linguist
William Alexander Robb Kerr – president of the University of Alberta
Mors Kochanski – bushcraft and wilderness survival pioneer
Karol Józef Krótki – demographer who helped establish the Population Research Laboratory, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Gérard Vincent La Forest – dean of law (1968–1970), past Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Francis John Lewis – botanist
Dorothy Livesay – poet, two-time winner of Governor General's Awards
John M. MacEachran – psychologist, proponent of eugenics
Walter Mackenzie – surgeon
Barry J. Mailloux – computer scientist
Eli Mandel – poet, winner of a Governor General's Award
Anne McLellan – law professor, former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and holder of multiple other Cabinet positions
Carlo Montemagno – bionanotechnologist, winner of the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology
Angus Munn – soldier and anesthesiologist
Joseph S. Nelson – ichthyologist
Hope A. Olson – library scientist
John Orrell – theatre historian who advised the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe
Jim Parr – metallurgist, broadcaster, and composer
Solomiia Pavlychko – literary critic
Graham Peacock – abstract painter
Anatol Roshko – physicist, one of only three people alive to have a dimensionless number (Roshko number) named after them
George A. Rothrock – European historian
David Schindler – limnologist, winner of the Volvo Environment Prize and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement
Stephen Scobie – poet
Gail Sidonie Sobat – writer and educator
Ian Stirling – Arctic ecologist
Mathukumalli V. Subbarao – number theorist
Morris Swadesh – pioneer of lexicostatistics and creator of the Swadesh list
Yasushi Takahashi – physicist, co-discoverer of the Ward–Takahashi identity
Henry Marshall Tory – first president of the University of Alberta, founder of three universities, the Alberta Research Council and National Research Council of Canada
Thomas Thundat – Canada Excellence Research Chair in Oilsands Molecular Engineering
Nicole Tomczak-Jaegermann – mathematician
Hiroomi Umezawa – physicist
Maury Van Vliet – physical education scholar
Ludwig von Bertalanffy – theoretical biologist who helped establish the Advanced Center for Theoretical Psychology, originator of General Systems Theory and creator of the Von Bertalanffy function
Ella May Walker – visual artist and writer
Sheila Watson – novelist, author of The Double Hook
Wilfred Watson – poet and dramatist
Thaddeus E. Weckowicz – psychologist
John Alexander Weir – first Dean of Law
Daniel Woolf – historian
Norman Yates – painter

Alumni

Academics

Dominique Abrioux – President of Athabasca University (1995–2005)
Charlene Bearhead – first educational lead at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba
Sir John Bell – Regius Chair of Medicine, University of Oxford^[11]
Andrew Brook – Chancellor's Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Carleton University
Tania Bubela – professor and dean in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University
Franco Romano Calaresu (1931–1996) – professor of neurophysiology, University of Western Ontario
James Collip – biochemistry professor, played key role in discovery of insulin
Jim Cummins – professor and author, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Bernadette Louise Dean – Principal of Kinnaird College, Pakistan
Su Guaning – President of Nanyang Technological University
Aja Huang – Google Deep Mind; with David Silver, a main researcher of Alpha Go
Joy Johnson – Vice-President, Research, Simon Fraser University
Charles Lee – cytogeneticist
Raymond U. Lemieux – chemistry pioneer, winner of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1999) and the Albert Einstein World Award of Science (1992)
Jacqueline P. Leighton - educational psychologist, academic and author
Tak Wah Mak – molecular biologist
Joseph B. Martin – Dean of Harvard Medical School^[12]
Ravi S. Menon – Canadian-American biophysicist and professor The University of Western Ontario
Martin P. Mintchev – bioengineering academic and inventor
Piers Nash – cancer research professor at the University of Chicago and founder of Sympatic
Jordan B. Peterson – media commentator, clinical psychologist, and former professor at the University of Toronto
Joseph Pivato – writer and researcher in ethnic minority writing in Canada; professor, Athabasca University, Edmonton
Noris Salazar Allen – Panamanian bryologist
David Silver – Google Deep Mind; with Aja Huang, a main researcher of Alpha Go
Janice Stein – international relations researcher
Wallace Sterling – past president of Stanford University
Richard E. Taylor – high-energy physicist, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics
Zoe Todd – anthropologist and Indigenous scholar
Satish K. Tripathi – President of University at Buffalo
Bas van Fraassen – philosopher of science, developer of constructive empiricism
Kristopher Wells – scholar of gender and sexuality at MacEwan University and Senator

Authors

Judges

Adam Germain – Justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta (retired), member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta (retired)
Lionel Locksley Jones – Justice of the Court of King's Bench of Alberta (retired) (deceased 2016)
Joe Kryczka – past Justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association
Ronald Martland – past Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Beverley McLachlin – Chief Justice of Canada
Henry Grattan Nolan – past Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
William Stevenson – past Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Allan Wachowich – past Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta (retired)
Edward R. Wachowich – past Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Alberta (deceased 2012)

Politicians

Rona Ambrose – Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs
Pat Binns – former Premier of Prince Edward Island
Joe Clark – former Prime Minister of Canada
Charles Dent – former Cabinet Minister of the Northwest Territories
David Emerson – Minister of International Trade
David Hancock – former Premier of Alberta and Minister of Education of Alberta
Lou Hyndman – former Alberta cabinet minister^[14]
Don Iveson – former Mayor of Edmonton
Matt Jeneroux – Member of Parliament for Edmonton Riverbend, former MLA
J. Wilton Littlechild – former Member of Parliament^[15]
Peter Lougheed – former Premier of Alberta
Preston Manning – former leader of the Reform Party of Canada, and founder of two Canadian political parties
Greg McLean – Member of Parliament for Calgary Centre
Roland Michener – former Governor General
Rachel Notley – former Premier of Alberta
Jim Prentice – former Premier of Alberta and Minister of Environment
Jan Reimer – first female mayor of Edmonton
Ed Stelmach – former Premier of Alberta (attended, did not graduate)
Jane Sterk – Leader of the Green Party of British Columbia
Claudette Tardif – Canadian Senator for Alberta, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate of Canada

Other notable alumni

Greg Abel (born 1961/62) – businessman, Berkshire Hathaway^[16]
Harry Ainlay – educational administrator, three-term mayor of Edmonton, namesake of Harry Ainlay High School
Doris Anderson – editor and rights activist
Anil Arora – former Chief Statistician of Canada
Allan Gordon Bell – composer
Nereo Bolzon – football player
Ron Butlin – ice hockey executive
Clarence Campbell – former National Hockey League president
Neil Campbell – discovered gold in Yellowknife
Juan Chioran – voice and stage actor at the Stratford Festival
Joel H. Cohen – Canadian-Jewish comedy writer for The Simpsons
Ted Corday – soap opera creator (Days of Our Lives)
Ernest Côté – soldier, diplomat and civil servant^[17]
Jim Coutts – political advisor
Clare Drake – ice hockey coach in CIS history, inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2017
Nicole Dunsdon – the last person to win the Miss Canada competition before it was cancelled
Bernard Ebbers – Worldcom co-founder and CEO; briefly attended the university
William Epstein –- international expert on disarmament who worked at the United Nations
Tim Feehan – songwriter
Nathan Fillion – actor
Andrew French – abstract sculptor
Jay Gilday – singer-songwriter
Allan Gilliland – composer
Patrick Gilmore – actor
Randy Gregg – former National Hockey League player and medical researcher
Paul Gross – actor
Ted Harrison – painter and illustrator
Ivan Head – former policy adviser of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
Violet King Henry – first black woman lawyer in Canada
Daryl Katz – billionaire entrepreneur, owner of the Rexall Pharmacy chain and the Edmonton Oilers
Lewis Kay – scientist
Lylian Klimek – sculptor
Eric Allan Kramer – character actor, most notable in the role of Bob Duncan in Good Luck Charlie
Joseph Kubanek – American psychiatrist
Melina Laboucan-Massimo – climate justice and Indigenous rights advocate
Thomas Rockwell Mackie – medical physicist, inventor of tomotherapy
Ken Macklin – sculptor
Glenna Matoush – visual artist
Shelley Moore – special education expert
Ray Muzyka – BioWare co-founder
Sidney Richard Carlyle Nelson – Canadian Air Marshal for the RAF
Tom Radford – documentary filmmaker
Jan Randall – composer and musician
Daniel K. Riskin – evolutionary biologist and co-host of Daily Planet
Joseph H. Shoctor – real estate developer, co-founder of the Citadel Theatre
George Stanley – designer of the Canadian flag
Robert Steadward – former International Paralympic Committee President^[18]
Olawale Sulaiman – neurosurgeon, philanthropist and academic
Esther Tailfeathers – physician and Indigenous health expert^[19]
William Thorsell – editor, The Globe and Mail; Director, the Royal Ontario Museum
Jason Tuffs – CEO of MNP LLP^[20]
Malorie Urbanovitch – fashion designer
Jean Wallbridge – architect
Lorne Warneke – psychiatrist and LGBTQ+ advocate
Anne Wheeler – film director
Dayo Wong Tze-Hwa (黃子華) – Hong Kong comedian, actor, singer-songwriter and screenwriter; pioneered Cantonese stand up comedy
Suzie Wong (蘇施黃) – Hong Kong disk jockey and television cooking program host
Greg Zeschuk – BioWare co-founder
Jason Zuback – golfer; five-time world long drive champion

Rhodes Scholars

The University of Alberta has produced 76 Rhodes Scholars, including the following:

Roland Michener (1919) – 20th governor general of Canada
George Stanley (1929) – designer of the Canadian flag
Arthur Kroeger (1956) – academic, federal deputy minister and chancellor of Carleton University
Billy-Ray Belcourt (2016) – first First Nations Rhodes Scholar, poet and winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize

Honorary degree recipients

His Highness the Aga Khan – spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims
Douglas Cardinal – architect
Victor Cavendish – former Governor General of Canada
Charles III
Jean Chrétien – former Prime Minister of Canada
John Diefenbaker – former Prime Minister of Canada
King Edward VIII
Randy Gregg - former National Hockey League and Olympic hockey player, physician and philanthropist^[21]
Wayne Gretzky – former National Hockey League player
Horace Harvey – second Chief Justice of Alberta; chairman of the University of Alberta Board of Governors
Frederick Haultain – the first and only premier of Canada's North-West Territories
Lois Hole – former Lieutenant Governor of Alberta
Ernest Manning – former Premier of Alberta
Don Mazankowski – former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada
Walter Murray – first President of the University of Saskatchewan
Alexander Rutherford – first Premier of Alberta
Arthur Sifton – former Premier of Alberta
Manmohan Singh – former Prime Minister of India
Donald Smith – 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal
Donna Strickland, Canadian Nobel Prize in Physics winner^[22]

Harry Strom – former Premier of Alberta
Mother Teresa – missionary
Pierre Trudeau – former Prime Minister of Canada
Desmond Tutu – former Archbishop of Cape Town and current chair of the Global Elders
Max Ward – pioneering aviator

References

^ "Jonathan Hart". Macmillan. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Mark Lewis Home Page". University of Alberta. Retrieved December 9, 2009.
^ "Dr. Jacob Masliyah". Home Page. University of Alberta. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Adam Morton, FRSC". University of Alberta. June 14, 2006. Archived from the original on August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Adam Morton". Home page. University of Alberta Faculty of Arts. Archived from the original on April 5, 2005. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Jonathan Schaeffer Home Page". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on April 9, 2008. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Event Details: William Hardy Alexander Award for Excellence in Sessional Teaching". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "In Memorium: Dr. George Ball".
^ "UAP Books: Apostrophes IV". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Author not working as hard". Medicine Hat News. Medicine Hat, Alberta. June 29, 1979. p. 29.
^ "Sir John Bell". Oxford Health Alliance. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
^ "Dean of Harvard med school returns to his roots". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ Schoek, Ellen. I Was There: A Century of Alumni Stories about the University of Alberta, 1906–2006. University of Alberta, 2006. 635. Retrieved from Google Books on February 4, 2011. ISBN 0-88864-464-7, ISBN 978-0-88864-464-0.
^ "Former chancellor Lou Hyndman receives an honorary degree". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on December 8, 2008. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Mr. Wilton Littlechild". UNPFII. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Warren Buffett's Canadian lieutenant eyes Alberta expansion". Retrieved 10 January 2018 – via The Globe and Mail.
^ "The planner Ernest Côté was a WWII veteran who helped plan the invasion of Normandy". University of Alberta. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
^ "The Steadward Centre for Personal & Physical Achievement". The University of Alberta. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
^ "Medical doctor and changemaker, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, to receive University of Lethbridge honorary degree | UNews". University of Lethbridge. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
^ "Jason Tuffs, CPA, CA". MNP. MNP LLP. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
^ Townsend, Sean (26 September 2024). "Two leading community builders to receive honorary degrees this fall". Folio. University of Alberta. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
^ Camminga, Sandrine (23 April 2024). "Meet eight honorary degree recipients who are building a better world". Folio. University of Alberta. Retrieved 13 October 2024.

[1] "Jonathan Hart". Macmillan. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[2] "Mark Lewis Home Page". University of Alberta. Retrieved December 9, 2009.

[3] "Dr. Jacob Masliyah". Home Page. University of Alberta. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[4] "Adam Morton, FRSC". University of Alberta. June 14, 2006. Archived from the original on August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[5] "Adam Morton". Home page. University of Alberta Faculty of Arts. Archived from the original on April 5, 2005. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[6] "Jonathan Schaeffer Home Page". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on April 9, 2008. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[7] "Event Details: William Hardy Alexander Award for Excellence in Sessional Teaching". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[8] "In Memorium: Dr. George Ball".

[9] "UAP Books: Apostrophes IV". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[10] "Author not working as hard". Medicine Hat News. Medicine Hat, Alberta. June 29, 1979. p. 29.

[11] "Sir John Bell". Oxford Health Alliance. Retrieved July 27, 2012.

[12] "Dean of Harvard med school returns to his roots". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[Schoek635-13] Schoek, Ellen. I Was There: A Century of Alumni Stories about the University of Alberta, 1906–2006. University of Alberta, 2006. 635. Retrieved from Google Books on February 4, 2011. ISBN 0-88864-464-7, ISBN 978-0-88864-464-0.

[14] "Former chancellor Lou Hyndman receives an honorary degree". University of Alberta. Archived from the original on December 8, 2008. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[15] "Mr. Wilton Littlechild". UNPFII. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[16] "Warren Buffett's Canadian lieutenant eyes Alberta expansion". Retrieved 10 January 2018 – via The Globe and Mail.

[The_planner-17] "The planner Ernest Côté was a WWII veteran who helped plan the invasion of Normandy". University of Alberta. Retrieved 22 August 2020.

[18] "The Steadward Centre for Personal & Physical Achievement". The University of Alberta. Retrieved October 20, 2009.

[University_of_Lethbridge-19] "Medical doctor and changemaker, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, to receive University of Lethbridge honorary degree | UNews". University of Lethbridge. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2024-06-05.

[20] "Jason Tuffs, CPA, CA". MNP. MNP LLP. Retrieved 8 September 2021.

[Folio202409-21] Townsend, Sean (26 September 2024). "Two leading community builders to receive honorary degrees this fall". Folio. University of Alberta. Retrieved 13 October 2024.

[Folio-22] Camminga, Sandrine (23 April 2024). "Meet eight honorary degree recipients who are building a better world". Folio. University of Alberta. Retrieved 13 October 2024.

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