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Jill Grant is a planning educator and scholar, and Professor Emeritus in the School of Planning at Dalhousie University.

She was born in 1951 in Newbury, England, and earned a BA Hon from the University of Western Ontario (1975) and an MA from McMaster University (1977), both in anthropology. Her shift in focus was triggered by living in Papua, New Guinea, where her partner was doing fieldwork, and she determined that planning and development was the key to helping people to cope with the challenges posed by their environment. On her return to Canada she entered the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo, from where she received an MA in 1980 and a PhD in 1991.

From 1995–2001 Jill Grant taught at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where she rose to the rank of full professor and served in various administrative capacities, including Department Head, Chair of the Design Division, and Vice-President (Academic Dean). Her move to Dalhousie in 2001 was the result of the merger of Environmental Planning at NSCAD with Dalhousie’s Urban and Rural Planning program. She was a key figure in shaping the School of Planning’s Community Design program—the first of its kind in Canada—in which she taught until her retirement in 2017.

Jill Grant’s research examines planning theory and practice to understand how cities work and how planning can improve living environments. Areas of particular study include trends in planning Canadian suburbs, neighbourhood change in Halifax, coordinating multiple plans, and the influence of the creative classes and creative cities ideas on planning practice. Her published work is extensive, including monographs, book chapters, journal articles and reports, as well as web publications and working papers. She has also held numerous editorial board appointments for scholarly and professional journals and book publishers.

In addition to her work as a scholar and educator, Jill Grant has been involved as a consultant for or participant in numerous projects. Her community engagements are diverse; she sits on the Advisory Committee of Housing Nova Scotia, was a member of the Joint Review Panel for the White’s Point Quarry and Marine Terminal Project, and served as President of the Dartmouth Japan Karate Association. Her achievements have received wide recognition, including the 2014 API Award for Planning Excellence in research publication, a 2012 Reviewer Award for the Journal of Planning Education and Research, and Awards for Planning Excellence from the Canadian Institute of Planners in both 2003 and 2010.

James Gray was a scholar and professor of English literature and language at Dalhousie University. Born in Montrose, Scotland, he studied literature at the University of Aberdeen before serving in the Second World War from 1941-1946. After the war, he received a BA (1948) and MA (1951) in literature from Oxford University, where he studied at Balliol College. He moved to Quebec in 1951 to take up a teaching appointment at Bishop’s University, becoming head of their English department in 1958 and Chair of Humanities in 1971. During this period he also taught part time in the Canadian National Railways staff training course. He received his PhD in literature from the University of Montreal in 1970.

In 1975 Gray came to Dalhousie University as Dean of Faculty of Arts and Science. He wrote and lectured extensively about eighteenth-century studies, particularly on theatre and religious works. He was active in various literary and teaching associations, journals and publication initiatives, including the editorial committee of the Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson for over a decade. He was also a keen philatelist.

He was married to Pamela Gray, with whom he had one daughter. In 1980 James Gray retired to Kentville, Nova Scotia, as Thomas McCulloch Professor Emeritus. He died in 2012.

Ernest Guptill was a physicist and Dalhousie professor for three decades. He was born on 5 September 1919 on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, where he attended school until his family moved to Wolfville, Nova Scotia, in order that he and his two brothers could attend university. He received his BSc from Acadia University (1940) and his MA from the University of Western Ontario (1942). He earned his PhD at McGill University (1946), where he worked on radar research in collaboration with the Canadian National Research Council. He and W.H. Watson co-invented slotted waveguide antenna, a device used by aircraft, ocean vessels, fishing boat, and NORAD’s nationally linked radar stations.

Guptill moved to Halifax in 1947 to take up an appointment at Dalhousie University. His research included an early experiment in nuclear magnetic resonance with W.J. Archibald. In 1958, following a year-long sabbatical at the University of Leiden, Guptill was appointed George Monroe Professor of Physics and head of the physics department. He served on the National Research Council and with the Nova Scotia Research Foundation. In addition to his research and teaching, Guptill was a passionate sailor. On 20 March 1976, he died of hypothermia in a boating accident in Halifax's Northwest Arm, one hundred feet off Point Pleasant Park. His family established a memorial trust fund in his name to provide an annual scholarship for a Grand Manan High School student, and he is also commemorated by the annual E.W. Guptill Memorial Lecture series in Dalhousie's department of physics and atmospheric science.

Barry Guy (b. 1947) is a British composer and double bass player. From 1997 to 2006, he lived in Ireland, before moving to Switzerland with his wife, Maya Homburger, a Baroque violinist.

Guy worked for Caroe and Partners Architects in London for three years while studying the double bass and taking composition classes at Goldsmith’s College in London, England. He gave up a potential career in architecture in the late 1960s to study double bass full-time with James Edward Merritt at the Guildhall School of Music in London.

Since graduating, he has performed internationally as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, performing a range of improvised, baroque, and contemporary music. Guy has collaborated with a number of other musicians and ensembles, including the City of London Sinfonia, Academy of Ancient Music, London Classical Players, Maya Homburger, Paul Lytton, and Evan Parker, to name a few, and is the founder and artistic director of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra (formed in the early-1970s) and the Barry Guy New Orchestra (formed in 2000).

Many of his compositions arise from commissions from ensembles and orchestras with whom he also has a performing relationship. His compositions often feature improvisational elements and/or extended techniques, and he has experimented with graphic notation in a number of his works, including "Nasca Lines," a graphic score commissioned by the Upstream Ensemble in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Although Guy began to discuss a commission with Jeff Reilly (artistic director of the Upstream Music Association, or UMA) circa 1996, his first appearance in Halifax was not until 1999, when he performed one of his works, "Octavia," with the Upstream Ensemble at the Open Waters Festival of New and Improvised Music. Since then, Guy has collaborated regularly with the ensemble, through performances (sometimes with Maya Homburger), workshops, and compositions. Most recently, the Upstream Ensemble performed his "Witch Gong Game" at the 2012 Open Waters Festival. The "Witch Gong Game," like "Nasca Lines," is a graphic score partially inspired by the work of Scottish artist Alan Davie.

Guy and Homburger also have a CD label, MAYA Recordings, for the production of new, improvised, and early music. He has more than 200 recordings as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, 26 of which are under the MAYA label.