John Leonard is Professor of English at Western University and a Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada. He is an internationally recognized scholar in renaissance/early modern literature, especially the poetry and prose of John Milton. Since joining Western’s Department of English in 1987, John Leonard has received Western University's 2016 Hellmuth Prize for Achievement in Research, as well as five national and international awards, including the Honored Scholar of the Milton Society of America. The Times Literary Supplement has called him “one of the greatest Milton scholars working today.”

Leonard truly established himself as a Miltonist with his first book, Naming in Paradise, which won him his first James Holly Hanford Award. This book, a study of cratylism and Adamic naming in Paradise Lost, continues to have a lasting impact in the academic world. Leonard has since completed a fourth book, The Value of Milton. 

Professor Leonard is also recognized with an Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching.