Jean Robertson Burnet was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 academic specializing in ethnic studies. Burnet, a specialist in Canadian ethnic relations, founded the Glendon

Glendon College

Glendon College is one of the two campuses of York University, Canada's third-largest university, in Toronto, Ontario. A bilingual liberal arts college with 84 full-time faculty members and a student population of about 2400, Glendon is located in midtown Toronto's Lawrence Park neighbourhood...

 Sociology Department at York University

York University

York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....

.

Burnet was a native of Toronto and studied for her undergraduate degree in Sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 at Victoria College, Toronto

Victoria University in the University of Toronto

Victoria University is a constituent college of the University of Toronto, founded in 1836 and named for Queen Victoria. It is commonly called Victoria College, informally Vic, after the original academic component that now forms its undergraduate division...

, including under Harold Innis

Harold Innis

Harold Adams Innis was a Canadian professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of seminal works on media, communication theory and Canadian economic history. The affiliated Innis College at the University of Toronto is named for him...

. She received her Masters and PhD at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

.

She left the University of Toronto in 1967 to join York University and was the founding chair of the Glendon Department of Sociology.

Burnet died on September 14, 2009.