Professor Anja Geitmann, PhD
Professor Geitmann is the inaugural holder of the newly created Office of the Vice-President (Global Engagement) at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Next to her academic qualifications and administrative leadership experience, she brings to this role the lived experience of studying and working in six different countries, leadership roles in multinational collaborative research initiatives, and service on panels of international research funding organizations.
Professor Geitmann is seconded to the role of Vice-President from her mandates as Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Associate Vice-President (Macdonald Campus) in which she has served since 2015. In her role as Dean, she has been instrumental in setting up the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative in collaboration with the Faculties of Science and Engineering, and under her leadership McGill has positioned itself to be a leader and convenor of stakeholders in food safety, food security, sustainable agriculture, and environmental stewardship.
Anja Geitmann obtained her PhD in Environmental Biology in 1997 from the University of Siena (Italy), following undergraduate and graduate studies in biology at the University of Constance (Germany), Oregon State University (USA), and Stockholm University (Sweden). From 1997 to 2001 she performed postdoctoral research at the Université Laval, Québec, and at the University of Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Prior to joining McGill in 2015, she was Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences of the Université de Montréal and a member of the Institut de recherche en biologie végétale, where she taught Plant Anatomy, Microscopy, and Scientific Communication at undergraduate and graduate levels. At McGill she continues her active research program and in 2016 she was awarded a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Biomechanics of Plant Development, renewed in 2023. Her interdisciplinary research program focuses on the cellular processes that underpin the development and reproduction of plants.
Dr. Geitmann is actively involved with several learned societies. She served as President of the Microscopical Society of Canada, the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists, and the International Association of Plant Reproduction Research. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists. She has published multiple books and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of several scientific journals including Cell, Plant Physiology and Journal of Experimental Botany. She is the Chair of the LS3 Life Science panel for Advanced Grants of the European Research Council, and she serves on the Board of Protein Industries Canada, one of five Global Innovation Clusters funded by the Canadian federal government.
Prof. Anja Geitmann, PhD
Interim Vice-President (Global Engagement)
Phone: 1 (514) 398-2161
anja.geitmann [at] mcgill.ca
Assistant: Annie Vos [annie.vos [at] mcgill.ca (Email)]
