Jordan B. Peterson

Jordan Peterson grew up in rural northern Alberta. He studied political science and psychology at the University of Alberta and earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University. His career has varied widely: he’s held blue-collar jobs ranging from dishwasher to railway line worker, and as a clinical psychologist, he’s helped clients manage conditions like depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia. He taught at Harvard University from 1993–1998 and joined the psychology faculty at the University of Toronto in 1998. In October 2016, a protestor filmed Peterson dialoguing with students about a bill passed by the Canadian Parliament which added “gender identity and expression” to the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code. While critiquing aspects of political correctness in general, he specifically argued that the bill would make the use of certain gender pronouns “compelled speech.” The protestor’s video went viral, and after that, Peterson became something of an online celebrity: though he’d been uploading lectures to YouTube since 2013, his follower count climbed into the millions between 2018 and 2021. He took time away from his clinical practice and teaching to finish writing 12 Rules for Life in 2018, and in 2021, he resigned from the University of Toronto in order to focus on writing and podcasting. Peterson has been married to his wife Tammy since 1989 and has two adult children, Mikhaila and Julian.