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The Founding College of the University of Toronto
Prof. David Naylor

Professor David Naylor

1974 UC - 2013 Award Recipient

Medical researcher, higher education leader and Rhodes Scholar David Naylor served as president of the University of Toronto from 2005 to 2013. After two years at University College, he entered medical school and received his MD from U of T’s Faculty of Medicine in 1978. He earned his PhD in the Faculty of Social and Administrative Studies at Oxford University in 1983 and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1986.

Naylor joined the Medical Research Council at Toronto General Hospital in 1987, and the Department of Medicine at U of T in 1988, becoming dean of Medicine and vice-provost for Relations with Health-Care Institutions at U of T from 1999 to 2005.

He is the co-author of approximately 300 scholarly publications, spanning social history, public policy, health economics and epidemiology and biostatistics, as well as clinical and health services research in most fields of medicine. He has also been active as a policy advisor to governments in Canada and abroad for 25 years. Among other contributions, he served as chair of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health in 2003. More recently, he was a member of the Global Commission on the Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century, and he served on the federal Review of R&D Spending in Canada.

Naylor is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, a Foreign Associate Fellow of the U.S. Institute of Medicine and an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is also the recipient of various national and international awards for excellence in research and leadership in clinical medicine, public policy, public health and health care.