William Thurlow was an engineer and his influence on Madge's academics showed throughout her persistent interest in sciences and maths.

[1] Before her senior year had ended, her family had decided to relocate back to her home town in Pennsylvania.

She was a part of Sigma Xi (ΣΞ); which is a scientific research society, Sigma Delta Epsilon (ΣΔΕ); a scientific women's sorority, and Alpha Gamma Delta (ΑΓΔ); a fraternity that encourages academic achievement.

Based on this description, Mall invited Charles to Johns Hopkins University to work with him, which is where he met Madge.

In her final year at Johns Hopkins University, Madge Thurlow married Charles Clifford Macklin on September 17, 1918.

[7] In 1930, while she was still at the University of Western Ontario, Macklin was involved in founding the Canadian Eugenics Society whose committee she served on from 1932 to 1935 and was director of in 1935.

Her husband and children stayed behind in Ontario to pursue her research at Ohio State University.

However, once she was in an environment that gave her adequate support and respect, Macklin began to conduct cancer research in terms of medical genetics which ended up being the main focus of her career.

Since few of these had therapies, often the only viable medical intervention was prevention; i.e., stopping "defective" people from reproducing.