Arvind Sharma was born in Varanasi, India, on the 13th of January 1940. Son of a father who worked in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), he followed the family tradition after earning a BA from Allahabad University in 1958 and worked for the IAS between 1962 and 1968.

In the late 60s, he moved to the United States of America to pursue a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Syracuse in New York, which he earned in 1970. There, he found much appreciation for religious studies and decided to resign from his IAS career in order to focus on his newly found vocation.

Right after this, he signed up for a Master in Theological Studies at the Harvard Divinity School and was met there with great academic and professional success. He followed his Master (1974) with a PhD in Sanskrit & Indian Studies (1978).

His first full-time teaching appointment came in 1976 when he was appointed as lecturer in Asian Religions at the University of Queensland’s Department of Studies in Religion. He held this position until 1980, when he was offered another appointment as a lecturer, but this time at the University of Sydney’s Department of Religious Studies. Between 1976 and 1987, he was a very prolific author in religious studies, having published while living in Australia more than 375 works, his peak year being 1981 with 55 works.

In 1987, he was appointed as Associate Professor at McGill University’s Faculty of Religious Studies and was a Full Professor by 1989. He was also given the Birks chair of Comparative Religion in 1994, a position he held ever since. As of 2017, he has worked with McGill University for 30 years.

Elizabeth Shapiro was born on November 17, 1918, in Montreal Quebec, the 3rd of 4 children to Burt and Hazel McDonald. Between 1924 and 1942 the McDonald family lived in Pelham New York, Toronto Ontario, Montreal, Evanston Illinois, and Detroit Michigan, finally settling in Bronxville New York in 1942. Elizabeth Shapiro graduated from secondary school in Bronxville New York in 1936, and after working a year as a nanny, attended McGill University in the fall of 1937, beginning in Arts and changing to Science in 1938.

Shapiro lived at McGill University’s Royal Victoria College throughout her degree and was active in campus activities. While at RVC Shapiro was House President (1941-1942), an elected position representing resident student interests to the RVC Warden. Shapiro was also one of the first female cheerleaders at McGill, though the initiative was short-lived. After joining the male cheerleaders at only one football game, Shapiro was threatened with expulsion by then Warden (Muriel Roscoe) and Principal Cyril James, claiming the practice was “unladylike”. Cheerleading and sports were very shortly after interrupted entirely by the start of WWII, ceasing all intra-mural sports on campus.

Elizabeth Shapiro graduated with a B.Sc. in Bacteriology in 1941. During the summers of 1927-1940 she also attended Camp Wapomeo, one of the Taylor Statten camps in Algonquin Park, Ontario. After graduation she worked for a year as a technician at the Montreal General Hospital, where she met her husband Dr. Lorne Shapiro, then a senior resident in Pathology. After their marriage in 1942 Lorne Shapiro enlisted in the Air Force, followed by postings to Toronto, Halifax, Trenton, Belleville, and Ottawa. After the end of the War, the Shapiro’s spent a year in London where Lorne was studying and returned to Montreal in 1948. The Shapiro’s remained in Montreal where they had 7 children (David, Ellen, Jean, Mary, William, James, Thomas). In 1968 Elizabeth Shapiro accompanied her husband to Kenya to set up a medical school at the University of Nairobi (in association with a World Health project).

Upon returning to Montreal in 1969 Elizabeth Shapiro worked for one year as a technician with Dr. Elaine Newman at Concordia University, while taking Microbiology refresher courses. From 1971-1986 she taught a first year biology course at McGill. Upon her retirement and the death of Lorne Shapiro in 1987 she enrolled in an Arts program at McGill, graduating in 1989 with B.A. in Classics. This degree led to Latin studies with a private tutor. The two following years were spent as a volunteer tutor in the School of Social work at McGill under the “Match” program. She volunteered with McGill University Archives from 1991-2008.