Michael McDonald
Member, Board of Directors
Professor and Astrophysicist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mike McDonald is a professor and astrophysicist at MIT. He was born and raised in Kingston, Ontario in Canada, where he received a BSc in Math and a BScH and MSc in Astrophysics from Queen’s University. He received his PhD from the University of Maryland in 2007, before coming to MIT as a NASA Hubble Fellow in 2011. He joined the faculty at MIT in 2015, where he has been ever since.
McDonald’s research focuses on understanding the formation and evolution of the most massive galaxies in the universe, and the role that their central supermassive black holes and local environment play in this evolution. This research makes use of a wide variety of ground- and space-based observatories, including (but not limited to) the James Webb, Hubble, and Chandra space telescopes, and the Magellan, ALMA, and South Pole Telescope on the ground. He has been the lead faculty member for MIT’s WSP bootcamp since 2016, was the first to trial a STEM-only WSP bootcamp in 2017, and has served on the WSP Academic Advisory Committee since 2023.