[1] MacPherson received his PhD from Harvard in 1970 with a thesis, written under the direction of Raoul Bott, entitled Singularities of Maps and Characteristic Classes.

[1] His notable doctoral students include Mark Goresky, David Nadler, Julianna Tymoczko, Kari Vilonen, and Zhiwei Yun.

[3] He also worked on arithmetic groups, in particular on Siegel modular threefolds with Mark McConnell and on compactifications of symmetric spaces with Lizhen Ji.

[5] In 2002, he and Goresky were awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research by the American Mathematical Society.

[3] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were instrumental in channeling aid to Russian mathematicians, especially many who had to hide their sexuality.