Person

Dunbar, M. J. (Maxwell John), 1914-1995

1914-1995

Maxwell John Dunbar was born in 1914 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His research interest was marine biology, particularly in the polar seas. As an undergraduate he went on expeditions to Greenland in 1935 and 1936, examining ice-free mechanisms at the face of the glaciers. From 1933 to 1937 he studied at Oxford University earning a B.A. and an M.A. In 1937 and 1938 he was awarded a Henry Fellowship to Yale University from Oxford. He made an expedition to Glacier Bay in Alaska in 1938, studying marine protozoa. He spent the summers of 1939 and 1940 as a member of the Government Party with the Hudson’s Bay supply ship, Nascopie, on the trips to the Eastern Arctic regions of Canada. Dunbar received his Ph.D. from McGill University in 1941. His research was interrupted by service as Canadian Consul to Greenland from 1941 to 1946. In 1946 joined the staff of the Department of Zoology as Associate Professor, and remained at McGill since then. He participated in expeditions to Ungava Bay between 1947 and 1951, and to Hudson Bay between 1954 and 1958. In 1963 Maxwell Dunbar organized the Marine Sciences Center, later the Institute of Oceanography, with the main research centers in the waters of the Canadian North, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Caribbean Sea. He served as its Chairman until 1977. In 1982 he was appointed Emeritus Professor of Oceanography at McGill, and since 1988 he was a member of the Climate Research Group in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Maxwell Dunbar was an active member in numerous professional associations, and a recipient of many honours. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1954 and was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in 1990. He wrote about 150 scientific papers and other publications. Dr. Dunbar died in 1995.