The late Donald Stuss was born in 1941, in Sudbury, Ontario, and grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo. After graduating from high school, he entered a monastery run by the Basilian Fathers in Mundare, Alberta. After six years of study and contemplation, he studied philosophy at the University of Ottawa, taught for several years, and later returned to the University of Ottawa to obtain his doctorate in psychology with Terence Picton. In 1986, in collaboration with Dr. Frank Benson, Dr. Stuss co-authored The Frontal Lobes, an influential book examining frontal lobe neuropsychology and function. In 1989, he moved to Toronto to direct the new RRI and investigate the cerebral basis of executive functions, attention, memory and their disorders. After retiring as director of the RRI in 2010, he became the founding President of the Ontario Brain Institute from 2011 to 2016. He was inducted to the Order of Ontario in 2001, and as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2017.