Associate Dean of Research & Graduate Education & Professor  of Comparative   Biology & Experimental Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary.
Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Medical Genetics, and Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine.
Dr. James (Jay) Cross took undergraduate studies at McGill University, and received a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) from the University of Saskatchewan in 1987, before taking his PhD at the University of Missouri in 1991, and doing postdoctoral work at the University of California at San Francisco. He joined the faculty at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute and the Departments of Molecular & Medical Genetics, and Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of Toronto in 1994, and then moved to the University of Calgary in 2000. At the University of Calgary, Dr. Cross was the founding Director of the Institute of Maternal & Child Health. He also founded the Training Program in Genetics, Child Development & Health, and the Clara Christie Centre for Mouse Genomics and Modeling of Human Disease.

Dr. Cross has published over one hundred research articles and book chapters and is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of placental development, stem cell biology, animal reproduction, embryology, and molecular genetics. He is a Scientist of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) and a former Scholar and Investigator of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Notable past awards include a Premier's Research Excellence Award (PREA) of Ontario in 1999 and the Research Scientist of the Year Award from the Association of Professors of Obstetrics & Gynecology in 2005. Dr. Cross has served on numerous committees for CIHR, the Heart & Stroke Foundation, the National Cancer Institute of Canada, the Gairdner Foundation, the Alberta Prion Research Institute, the Alberta Perinatal Health Program, and the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. and is a frequent invited speaker in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.