Gordon J. F. MacDonald

Gordon James Fraser MacDonald (July 30, 1929 – May 14, 2002) was an American geophysicist and environmental scientist, best known for his principled skepticism regarding continental drift (now called plate tectonics), involvement in the development of the McNamara Line electronic defense barrier during the Vietnam War, and early research and advocacy on human-made global climate change. MacDonald was admired for his creative mind, and his ability to connect scientific issues and matters of public policy.

MacDonald was born in Mexico of a Scottish father and white American mother. A childhood bout with polio only sharpened his competitive instincts. He applied to Harvard for a football scholarship and graduated summa cum laude at the age of 20. Remaining at Harvard, he became a Harvard Junior Fellow, then received his Ph.D. in geology in 1954. MacDonald was a faculty member at MIT (1954–1958), UCLA (1958–1966), UC Santa Barbara (1968–1970), Dartmouth (1972–1983) and UCSD (1990–1996).

Outside of academia, MacDonald was a long-time member of the elite JASON advisory group of scientists. He served on the original Presidential Council on Environmental Quality (1970–1972). President Nixon remarked at the time, "I have three members of the Harvard class of 1950 on my staff, all summa cum laude." The reference was to Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, and MacDonald. MacDonald chaired the CIA's MEDEA Committee (1993–1996), a group of environmental scientists convened by the CIA to study whether data from classified intelligence systems could shed light on global environmental issues. He was awarded the CIA's Agency Seal Medallion in 1994. He was Chief Scientist and Vice President of the MITRE Corporation from 1983 to 1990. He later became the director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Provided by Wikipedia