The late James Stewart received his M.S. from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.

He did research at the University of London and was influenced by the famous mathematician George Polya at Stanford University. Stewart was most recently Professor of Mathematics at McMaster University, and his research field was harmonic analysis.

Stewart was the author of a best-selling calculus textbook series published by Cengage Learning, including Calculus, Calculus: Early Transcendentals, and Calculus: Concepts and Contexts, as well as a series of precalculus texts.