Allan H. MacDonald

Allan H. MacDonald (born December 1, 1951) is a theoretical condensed matter physicist and the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair Professor of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin. He completed his Ph.D.in physics at the University of Toronto in 1978, working with S.H. Vosko on relativistic generalizations of density functional theory, and on the application of density functional theory to magnetism in metals. , MacDonald and Rafi Bistritzer -- a former postdoctoral researcher in MacDonald's lab -- proposed in 2011 that the Fermi velocity in graphene bilayers could vanish at specific "magic" relative orientation angles. the Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society in 2007 with James P. Eisenstein and Steven Girvin, the Ernst Mach Honorary Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences in 2012, and the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2020 with Bistritzer and Jarrillo-Herrero. and the National Academy of the Sciences in 2010. He was named a 2024 Citation Laureate by Clarivate. In 2026, MacDonald and Jarillo-Herrero were named winners of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of "Basic Sciences". Also in 2026 he received the Kavli Prize in the category of "Nanoscience", along with Jarillo-Herrero and Eva Andrei.

Personal life MacDonald is the second of eight children of David Roy (Jack) MacDonald and Elizabeth Jean (Betty) Sears. He grew up in Antigonish, Nova Scotia in the 1950s and 1960s, a town of 5000 people dominated at the time by 18th and 19th century Scottish and Irish immigrants. His namesake grandfather was a coal miner in New Waterford, N.S. and his mother was the daughter of a prominent local businessman and a graduate of Columbia University who wanted her children to be unafraid of the world 'from away.' MacDonald married Susan Wayling in Jimtown, Antigonish County, N.S. in 1974. They have two children, Erin (born 1977) and Brendan (born 1978) and four grandchildren living in Austin and San Francisco. Allan and Susan maintain a seasonal residence in Jimtown overlooking St. George's Bay - the backdrop of their summer days from youth to old age.

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