Professor Malcolm Macdonald
Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Personal statement
Supporting science and engineering communication to make it more easily accessible, especially to under-represented groups, I provide comment to national & international, specialist & mainstream media, across written word, audio, & visual. I have also worked as a consultant for radio and TV dramas, as well as novels.
Distinguished through my role in shaping the future of the space sector, both nationally and internationally, with experience of working in industry, government, and academia, as well as the interface to each, I have been recognised in the media as 鈥�Scotland's leading space expert". My research聽 was applied in development of UK鈥檚 first commercial CubeSat, and Scotland 1st spacecraft, launched in 2014, and I've delivered capacity building, and aided development of satellite technology and satellite applications around the world.
I am the Director of the Centre for Signal and Image Processing (CeSIP), and also the Director of the Applied Space Technology Laboratory (ApSTL) within CeSIP, which I founded and where I lead a team of staff and PGR students.
I am a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Space Research (C-Space), University College Dublin, Vice-Chair of the Space Technology Advisory Committee of the UK Space Agency, and an Associate Editor of the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics. I am also a member a Non-Executive Director of Weather Stream Inc., and a Council Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
Previously I was the Founding Director of the Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications, SoXSA (2014 - 2020), and a Non-Executive Board Member of UK Space Agency (2017 - 2020).
Prize And Awards
- Recipient
- 23/4/2024
- Recipient
- 8/11/2021
- Recipient
- 8/12/2020
- Recipient
- 19/11/2020
Publications
- , ,
- Physical Review E Vol 113 (2026)
- , , Blasch Erik,
- AIAA SCITECH 2026 Forum (2026)
- , Lu Szu-Ching, Anzulewicz Anna, Sobota Krzysiek, Thompson Lucy, Hagberg Bibi, Thorsson Max, , , McConnachie Alex, Minnis Helen, Wilson Philip, , Gillberg Christopher, ,
- Journal of the Royal Society Interface Vol 22 (2025)
- , Steinmann Emma, , , Reiss Philipp,
- Doctoral School Multidisciplinary Symposium (DSMS) 2025 (2025)
- , , Blasch Erik,
- IEEE Access Vol 13, pp. 123230-123258 (2025)
- , Steinmann Emma, , , Reiss Philipp,
- AIAA Aviation Forum and Ascend 2025 ASCEND 2025 (2025)
Research Interests
The Applied Space Technology Laboratory is addressing global challenges by working at the boundaries between disciplines to deliver a step-change in the democratisation, exploration, and exploitation of space.
- Developing new space and adjacent sector technologies in response to global challenges and anticipated demands, accelerating the democratisation of the use of space, and the data and services it provides.
- Developing technologies and algorithms to process the exponentially increasing data available from space to help us better understand our Earth, and to make this knowledge available to all.
- Developing insights to network systems across the natural sciences to engineer vastly more connected, efficient, and sustainable space systems.
Our work has an end-to-end focus on the development and application of systems by ensuring an understanding of the end application. Challenging conventional ideas and working at the interface between disciplines we seek to advance new concepts in the exploration and exploitation of space. Specifically, our research applies systems engineering concepts in, and applications of space technology by developing research into astrodynamics, networked systems, swarming, and de-centralised and collaborative systems.
Professional Activities
- Contributor
- 11/4/2025
- Contributor
- 16/11/2024
- Speaker
- 23/4/2024
- Participant
- 4/9/2023
- Organiser
- 9/5/2023
- Invited speaker
- 11/1/2023
Projects
- Macdonald, Malcolm (Principal Investigator) Clark, Ruaridh (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2027
- Werkmeister, Astrid (Principal Investigator) Macdonald, Malcolm (Co-investigator) Fergus-Allen, Cameron (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2025 - 01-Jan-2029
- Werkmeister, Astrid (Principal Investigator) Macdonald, Malcolm (Co-investigator) Fergus-Allen, Cameron (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2025 - 01-Jan-2029
- Clark, Ruaridh (Co-investigator) Macdonald, Malcolm (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2025 - 30-Jan-2030
- Owens, Steven Robert (Principal Investigator) Bowden, James (Co-investigator) Cummins, Mark (Co-investigator) Macdonald, Malcolm (Co-investigator) McKee, David (Co-investigator) White, Chris (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2025
- Yuan, Weijia (Principal Investigator) Macdonald, Malcolm (Co-investigator) Zhang, Min (Co-investigator)
- 06-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2024
Contact
Professor
Malcolm
Macdonald
Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Email: malcolm.macdonald.102@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 2042