Remembering journalist Peter Calamai ’65

Journalist, teacher, literacy advocate and McMaster graduate Peter Calamai ’65 (Physics) died on January 22 at his home in Stratford, Ontario.

While he was a student at McMaster, Calamai was a photographer, associate editor and editor of The Silhouette, which won several national awards under his leadership.

Highlights of his career include a 30,000-word series on literacy that found that 24 per cent of Canadians were functionally illiterate, and an in-depth series debunking climate-change deniers. He also taught journalism at Carleton University.

Calamai was a member of the Order of Canada as well as the McMaster Alumni Gallery. He received an honorary PhD from the university in 2015.

You can read more about his career in the obituary in the Globe and Mail here, and watch his Alumni Reunion Day Lecture here.