Dr. Allan MacDonald, the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair in the Department of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
MacDonald was one of 72 new members chosen on April 26 at the annual meeting of the Academy in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
The NAS is the country’s most prestigious scientific organization, and election to membership in the academy is one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer in the United States.
MacDonald will be inducted into the Academy next April during the organization’s 148th annual meeting in Washington, D.C. His election brings the number of University of Texas at Austin faculty elected to the NAS to 16.
“This is wonderful recognition of Allan MacDonald and his pioneering research in physics,” said William Powers Jr., president of The University of Texas at Austin. “Election to the National Academy of Sciences is a rare honor, and I congratulate Dr. MacDonald on his achievement.”
MacDonald’s research centers on the influence of electron-electron interactions on the electronic properties of metals and semiconductors. His group studies the physics of graphene, metal spintronics, cold atom systems, quantum Hall systems and nanoparticles.
He received his doctorate in 1978 from the University of Toronto. After researching at the National Research Council of Canada, he became a professor of physics at Indiana University in 1987. He joined the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin in 2000.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furthering of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Established in 1863, the NAS has served to “investigate, examine, experiment and report upon any subject of science or art” when called upon to do so by any department of the government.
