Daniel Woolf

Academic career

Daniel Woolf graduated from St. Paul's High School, Winnipeg, in 1976. He received a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in History from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario in 1980, and received a D.Phil. in Modern History from Oxford University in 1983, where he was supervised by the distinguished historian of seventeenth-century England and Master of St Peter's College, Oxford, Gerald Aylmer. Along with historians John Morrill and Paul Slack, Woolf would eventually co-edit the festschrift honouring Aylmer (1993). Among Woolf's contemporaries at St Peter's was David Eastwood, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. Woolf was appointed an honorary fellow of St Peter's in 2009.

Woolf returned to Canada in 1984 and taught at Queen's University as a SSHRCC postdoctoral fellow (1984–86), Bishop's University (1986–87), Dalhousie University (1987–1999), McMaster University (1999–2002), and the University of Alberta. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Royal Historical Society. In 1996–97 he was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, a class that included noted sociologist of science Thomas F. Gieryn, anthropologist Kay Warren, and cognitive scientist Mark Turner. Woolf's major areas of research are in Tudor and Stuart British history and the history of historiography both in Britain and globally.

Administrative career

Woolf's administrative career began as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie (1998–99), a period including six months as Acting Dean of that Faculty. In 1999 he moved to McMaster University, serving for three years as Dean of its Faculty of Humanities. In 2002, he was appointed Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta, succeeding Kenneth Norrie, who had recently become McMaster's Provost. Woolf was reappointed in 2007, and commenced his second term in 2008 following a year's administrative leave during which he returned to his research.

Appointments and Boards

Woolf is a member of the board of directors of Historica (formerly the Historica-Dominion Institute (2012– )) and a past member of the Royal Society of Canada Executive Committee (2012–15 ).

Personal life

Born in London, England, but raised in Winnipeg, Woolf is a dual citizen of Canada and the United Kingdom. His parents were the late Cyril I. Woolf (1930–2012), an otolaryngologist and the late Margaret M. Woolf, a former part-time university instructor in English literature. His uncle is historian Stuart Woolf, and his younger brother is Vancouver-based architect Jeremy Woolf.

Woolf is married to Julie Anne Gordon-Woolf, a health sciences administrator and professional harpist. He has three children from a previous marriage to political science professor Jane Arscott, Sarah (b 1989), Samuel (b 1990) and David (b 1993).