Donald Dawson is a mathematician who specialises in probability. His research interests include the application of probability to genetics, statistical physics, finance and communications. Donald has written eight monographs and more than 150 refereed publications on the subject.

He studies interaction and hierarchy in measure-valued processes and has made seminal contributions to the study of stochastic processes — also known as random processes. His work on infinite dimensional models has created a powerful framework for studying models of evolving populations.

Donald has served as President of the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability and Director of the Fields Institute. He has been an editorial board member for a number of journals and was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics from 1988–1993. He received the 1991 Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada and the 1994 Jeffery–Williams Prize from the Canadian Mathematical Society.