Alumni of Influence

Pioneering physician Marguerite Hill helped pave the way for female doctors in Canada. She studied psychology at UC and served in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps during the Second World War as one of the few woman psychologists. After the war and despite the objections of her family, she enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at U of T, graduating at the top of her class. Hill subsequently became the first female chief resident at Toronto General Hospital and the first woman to be appointed to the board of the CIBC. She enjoyed a 26-year career at Women’s College Hospital, where she cultivated a compassionate, patient-centered approach to care.

Female athletes in Canada owe a debt of gratitude to trailblazing Olympian Abby Hoffman. At the age of nine and in reaction to the dearth of girls’ hockey teams at the time, she cut off her hair so she could join a boy’s league. She advanced with the team until asked to produce a birth certificate. News of her true gender made international headlines and Hoffman moved onto other sports.

As a student at UC, she took up track and field, only to be thrown out of male-only training facilities. Still, she made the Canadian Olympic team and attended four consecutive Games, acting as flag bearer in 1976. After her competitive career, she taught and worked as a sports consultant, becoming the first female director of Sports Canada. She received the International Amateur Athletic Federation Medal in 1998 and is currently a senior advisor with Health Canada.

Distinguished scholar Linda Hutcheon has enriched the fields of literary theory, criticism, Canadian studies and opera with her trademark cross-disciplinary approach. Known for her theories on postmodernism, she holds the elite rank of University Professor at U of T. Hutcheon is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship and prestigious Killam Prize. She holds several honorary doctorates and is the former head of the Modern Languages Association.

Legal luminary Julius Isaac was the first Black person to sit on the Federal Court of Canada. Born in Grenada, Isaac came to Canada to study at U of T, taking jobs as a maintenance person and railway porter to pay for his arts and law degrees. He practised law in Ontario and Saskatchewan, earning the esteemed designation of Queen’s Counsel and later serving on the Supreme Court of Ontario. In 1991, Isaac was appointed Chief Justice of the Federal Court by former prime minister Brian Mulroney. Upon his death in 2011, he held several honorary doctorates as well as the Silver Jubilee Award of Grenada.

Professor and physician Edward Keystone is a leader in arthritis research. A consultant in rheumatology at Mount Sinai Hospital, he is also the founder of the Arthritis and Autoimmunity Research Centre, chair of the Canadian Rheumatology Research Consortium and director of the Rebecca MacDonald Centre for Arthritis and Autoimmune Disease, Division of Advanced Therapeutics. An active researcher, he is the author of more than 170 papers and the winner of Senior Investigator Award of the Canadian Rheumatology Association.

World-renowned travel physician Jay Keystone is an expert in tropical and infectious disease. He is the former president of the International Society of Travel Medicine, the clinical section of the American Society of Tropical Medicine, and the Canadian Society of International Health. Currently, he is the director of the Medisys Travel Clinic in Toronto, a professor in the Department of Medicine at U of T and a frequent speaker on traveller’s health. His research focuses on leprosy and intestinal parasites.

Academic leader and Olympian Bruce Kidd’s victories include winning numerous national and international track-and-field medals, enshrining athletes' rights in Canada, and eradicating discrimination in sporting communities around the world. His undergraduate career as a student of economics at UC was concurrent with an amateur athletic career that took him to the 1962 Commonwealth Games and the 1964 Olympic Games.

Kidd is a longtime member of the Canadian Olympic Association, and he is the only person to be twice inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame. He served as dean of U of T’s Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Health for 19 years and moved on to positions as the Warden of Hart House and U of T vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Walter Kohn has made seminal contributions to understanding the electronic properties of materials. He did much of his notable work on semiconductors at Carnegie Mellon Univerity in Pittsburgh. Afterward, he moved to the University of California San Diego to serve as founding director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics. In 1998, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his leading role in developing density functional theory.

Retired Justice Horace Krever is an accomplished lawyer, academic, and judge. He practised law in Toronto and taught at U of T and Western University before being appointed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. He was subsequently elevated to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Krever also led several high-profile committees and commissions, including the Royal Society’s 1987 project on AIDS, and the famous inquiry into the blood system in Canada.

Community leader and environmental advocate Sonia Labatt is recognized nationally and internationally for her contributions to public life. A specialist in environmental economics, she is the author of books on the financial implications of climate change, and has taught at as an adjunct professor at U of T’s Centre for Environment. In the community, Labatt has served on the boards of arts, health and educational institutions. Along with husband Arthur Labatt, she has also provided founding support for a number of academic fellowships and institutes in health and the environment.

Journalist Michele Landsberg is one of Canada’s foremost feminists and social justice activists. She is best known for her former Toronto Star column, in which she chronicled the state of women’s and children’s rights in Canada and around the world. She is the recipient of two National Newspaper Awards and the YWCA Women of Distinction Award, as well as numerous other honours for her writing and work to advance the cause of women. She holds several honorary doctorates and is an in-demand speaker on progressive issues. She is married to Stephen Lewis (1959 UC), former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations.

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Bora Laskin was one of the nation’s most distinguished jurists and academics. He excelled in his study of law but was unable to find employment as a practising lawyer due to the discrimination against Jews in the profession at the time. Laskin opted for a career in academia and taught at U of T’s Faculty of Law for more than 20 years. Subsequently, he was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court of Canada. He was elevated to Chief Justice by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1973, a position he held until his death in 1984.