Ruaridh Macdonald
PhD student Ruaridh Macdonald develops a tool to identify
nuclear weapons without divulging too much.
(September 2, 2015) “Energy
is incredibly fundamental to life,” MIT graduate student Ruaridh Macdonald
says. “That’s why I keep studying it.”
This tenet has been the thread throughout Macdonald’s nearly
eight years at MIT — first as an undergraduate, then as a master’s student, and
now as a PhD student — all spent studying nuclear science and engineering.
Though he has remained engaged in this one department, he’s participated in a
variety of projects, first studying reactor design as he pursued his master’s
degree and now working on a nuclear weapons verification project in the
Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy.
Transportable
reactors
Macdonald, who grew up in West London, spent his grade
school days equally interested in the arts and humanities and in physics. But
he ultimately chose physics when faced with the U.K.’s school system, which
requires students to pick a concentration, similar to a major in college.
“I still have immense respect for the arts, but I asked
myself which would allow me to help people most broadly, and I chose science,”
Macdonald says.