Atwood gives C$1 million for bird research chair honouring Graeme Gibson

Margaret Atwood has given C$1 million to Western University to establish the Graeme Gibson Chair in Avian Biology, supporting research into how birds move, behave and adapt to environmental change. Announced on September 25, 2026, the gift honours her late partner and addresses questions that researchers say remain unresolved.

The university in London, Ontario, will host the chair in its biology department and Centre for Animals on the Move, with access to its Advanced Facility for Avian Research, according to Western’s announcement.

Questions about migration

In an interview with the Guardian, Chris Guglielmo, co-director of the facility, described the gap between observing birds’ navigational abilities and explaining how those abilities work. Researchers can change magnetic fields and see birds alter their orientation, he said, while the mechanisms behind those senses remain a mystery.

Western’s existing research includes a hypobaric climatic wind tunnel used to study bird flight through different air conditions, the Guardian reported. Guglielmo and his colleagues also investigate how migratory birds fuel themselves and survive long journeys.

A shared commitment to birds

The donation extends a conservation partnership that predates the chair by more than two decades. The Pelee Island Bird Observatory identifies Atwood and Gibson as its co-founders in 2003 and lists Atwood as its founding honorary chair.

The observatory also records their service as honorary co-chairs of BirdLife International’s Rare Bird Club. Its account describes Atwood’s continuing association with the observatory and advocacy for bird habitat and protection.

Gibson, a novelist, died in 2019. In its September 25 report, the Guardian described how he continued watching birds even as vascular dementia affected his ability to keep a journal about them. Atwood’s gift names the research chair in his memory.

Weeks before the donation announcement, Atwood attended the opening of the Atwood-Gibson Bird Centre on Pelee Island, according to the Guardian. The building expands the observatory’s facilities on the Lake Erie island, where staff study birds’ migratory movements.

The island sits at the intersection of the Atlantic and Mississippi migration routes and welcomes more than 200 bird species each spring, the Guardian reported. That setting connects the couple’s local conservation work with the longer journeys Western’s scientists are trying to understand.

Atwood discussed the gift and her conservation interests in Leyland Cecco’s Guardian interview. She described habitat destruction as particularly difficult to reverse, stressing that birds need specific habitats and that replacing a forest elsewhere does not make it equivalent.