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Donald A. Dawson

Canadian mathematician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ4502303
Source-derived summary

Donald Andrew Dawson (born June 4, 1937) is a Canadian mathematician, specializing in probability.

Education and career

Dawson received in 1958 his bachelor's degree and in 1959 his master's degree from McGill University and in 1963 his PhD from MIT under Henry McKean with thesis Constructions of Diffusions with Specified Mean Hitting Times and Hitting Probabilities. In 1962/63 he was an engineer in the aerospace department of Raytheon. At McGill University he became in 1963 an assistant professor and in 1967 an associate professor. At Carleton University he became in 1970 an associate professor and in 1971 a professor, working in this position until 1996.

From 1996 to 2000 Dawson was the director of the Fields Institute and during these years also an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. From 2000 to 2010 he was an adjunct professor at McGill University.

Research

Dawson works on stochastic processes, measure-valued processes, and hierarchical stochastic systems with applications in information systems, genetics, evolutionary biology, and economics. He has written 8 monographs and over 150 refereed publications.

In 1994 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich with lecture Interaction and hierarchy in measure-valued processes.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Donald A. Dawson” is canadian mathematician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Donald, Dawson and Canadian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1937, 1958, 1959, 1963—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1937-06-04. For this dossier, Donald, Dawson and Canadian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “canadian mathematician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4502303. VIAF identifies the subject as 94395140. The Library of Congress control number is n50058935. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1958, 1959 and 1963.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Donald A. Dawson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Donald A. Dawson primary sources, Donald A. Dawson archive and Donald research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Donald A. Dawson”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Donald A. Dawson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.