D.O. Hebb, one of the outstanding psychologists of this century, was born in Nova Scotia July 20th, 1904. He was educated at Dalhousie (B.A., 1925) and McGill (M.A. 1932). He taught briefly in public schools. While recovering from a serious illness, he read the works of Pavlov and Karl Lashley and became interested in psychology. He studied under Lashley in Chicago and at Harvard, where he received his Ph.D. in 1936. Hebb then conducted research on brain-damaged patients with Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute (1937-1939), and after teaching at Queen's (1941-1942), went to the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology as research fellow (1942-1947). In 1947 he came to McGill as Professor of psychology, serving as chairman of the department (1948-1959), Vice-Dean for biological sciences (1964-1966), and finally Chancellor of the University (1970-1972). He passed away on August 20th, 1985.

Peter Hechtman was an Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics at McGill University. He completed his PhD under the supervision of Charles Scriver. Hechtman was a pioneer researcher on Tay-Sachs disease and was responsible for instigating province-wide genetic screening for the disease. He joined the Medical Group in Medical Genetics in the early 1970s as an expert in molecular and biochemical genetics.

Matthew Forster Heddle was born on April 28, 1828, in Hoy, Orkney, Scotland.

He was a Scottish physician, educator, and mineralogist. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh (1845-1851) and he practised in Edinburgh for about 5 years. Then he studied chemistry and mineralogy at Klausthal and Freiburg, Germany. In the 1850s, together with Patrick Dudgeon, he participated in survey expeditions of the Faroe Islands, the Shetland Islands, and the Orkney Islands. In 1876, they co-founded the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain. He became assistant to Prof. Connell, who held the chair of chemistry at St. Andrews, and in 1862, he succeeded him as a professor, a position he held until 1880 when he was invited to report on gold mines in South Africa. On his return, he devoted himself to mineralogy and formed one of the finest personal collections of minerals. His specimens are now in the Royal Scottish Museum at Edinburgh. Heddle contributed many articles on Scottish minerals, and on the geology of the northern parts of Scotland, to the Mineralogical Magazine, as well as to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1876, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was a keen amateur mountaineer and one of the first honorary members of the Scottish Mountaineering Club.

In 1858, he married Mary Jane Sinclair Mackechnie (1831–1891). He died on November 19, 1897, in St Andrews, Scotland.