Allan Hugh MacdonaldProfessor

As an undergraduate student at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada (that’s where I'm from), I started out thinking that I was interested in mathematics. As I learned a bit about math and science, I eventually realized that what attracted me most was applications of mathematics. I remember being turned on when I started to understand that people really could build mathematical models of the world around us that correctly predicted completely unexpected and unknown behaviors. And I knew that building the models was fun. I had a few ideas for graduate studies including economics which I loved as an undergraduate. I chose physics because my girlfriend at the time, now my spouse, worked at a hospital attached to the University of Toronto’s downtown campus that was across the street from the physics department. It turned out to be a doubly good choice for me.