Born in Vienna in 1922, Walter Hitschfeld received his B.A.Sc in Engineering Physics from the University of Toronto in 1946 and his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Physics from McGill University in 1950. He joined the staff of McGill's Physics Department in 1951. In 1961 he became Professor of Meteorology and Physics. Since 1962 Dr. Hitschfeld was Professor of Meteorology (Canada Steamship Lines). From 1964 to 1967 he was Chairman of the Meteorology Department, and from 1967 to 1971 Vice-Dean of Physical Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Science. Then, in 1971, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research and Vice-Principal of Research, and served this position until 1980. In 1981 Dr. Hitschfeld accepted the invitation to become Director of McGill International. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, and a member of the Canadian Association of Physicists, the Canadian Meteorological Society, of which he was President from 1973 to 1974, the American Meteorological Society and the Society of Sigma X. Dr. Hitschfeld authored more than 20 articles on cloud physics and related subjects, and received Darton Prizes for meteorological research in 1960, 1962 and 1963. To honour Dr. Hitschfeld's authority in cloud physics and radar meteorology, the Environmental Earth Sciences Library was named after him. Dr. Hitschfeld died in 1986 in Montreal.

Romyn Hitchcock was born on December 1, 1851, in St. Louis, Missouri.

He was a research botanist, chemist, and educator. He attended Cornell University and graduated from Columbia School of Mines in 1872. He was an assistant professor of chemistry at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Penn., (1872-1874) and engaged in testing heavy guns at the government arsenal in Springfield, Mass. (1874-1877). He taught chemistry and toxicology at the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College (1876-1877) and served as an editor of the American Quarterly Microscopical Journal and the American Microscopical Journal (1878-1886). From 1883 to 1886, he was a curator of the National Museum in Washington, D.C. He was professor of English at the Koto Chu Gakko, a Japanese Government school in Osaka (1886-1889), and oversaw the photographic work of the U.S. eclipse expedition to Japan in 1887. He also served as U.S. commissioner to China for the World Columbian Exposition (1887-1889). He later conducted botanical research. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Microscopical Society of England and a member of the American Chemical Society, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the New York Microscopical Society.

In 1875, he married Emma Louise Bingham (1852–1933). He died on November 30, 1923, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Charles Henry Hitchcock was born on August 23, 1836, in Amherst, Hampshire County, Massachusetts.

He was an American geologist. His father was Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864), a professor of geology and natural theology, and president of Amherst College. His mother Orra White Hitchcock (1796-1863) illustrated most of his father's work. Hitchcock graduated from Amherst College in 1856. He studied at the Royal School of Mines in London (1866-1867), examined fossils in the British Museum, and visited glaciers in Switzerland. He served as New Hampshire State Geologist from 1868 to 1878 and taught at Dartmouth College from 1868 to 1908, holding the Hall Professorship of Geology and Mineralogy. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1870. Hitchcock was a founder of the Geological Society of America and in 1883, he became vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He published "The Geology of New Hampshire" (3 vols., 1874-1878) and created a series of large relief maps of New England for display at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. In addition to geology, he contributed to a wide range of fields including fieldwork in paleontology, bedrock and glaciology, economic geology, and volcanology. Mount Hitchcock in California is named in his honour.

In 1862, he married Martha Bliss Barrows (1837-1892) and in 1894, he married Charlotte Malvina Barrows (1840–1922). He died on November 7, 1919, in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is buried in Hanover, Grafton County, New Hampshire.