Melanie A. Woodin, an internationally recognized neuroscientist, began her term as the University of Toronto’s 17^th President on July 1, 2025.

A widely respected scholar, teacher, mentor and administrator, President Woodin is a Professor in the Department of Cell & Systems Biology and former Dean of the University’s Faculty of Arts & Science – Canada’s largest and most comprehensive faculty. During her tenure, the Faculty’s Acceleration Consortium was awarded $200 million — the largest federal research grant awarded to a university in Canadian history. She also oversaw the development of new centres for African Studies and Caribbean Studies, the elevation of the Centre for Indigenous Studies and the creation of the Online Learning Academy.  She supported the redesign of student spaces, expanded college-based registrarial supports, and guided the development and launch of new academic programs including the Arts & Science Internship Program.

President Woodin is renowned for her multidisciplinary approach to examining synaptic communication in the brain and has authored or co-authored more than 50 academic papers and book chapters. She and her research team are unravelling mechanisms that lead to neurological disorders and diseases, including autism spectrum disorder, Huntington’s disease and ALS.

After earning a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from U of T, President Woodin completed her PhD in neuroscience at the University of Calgary. Following postdoctoral study at the University of California, Berkeley, she joined the University of Toronto in 2004 as an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology. She was promoted to full professor in 2017 in the Department of Cell & Systems Biology and has received research funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Society of Canada, among others.

President Woodin serves as a director at the Vector Institute and is a former president of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience.