Commissioner Roy MacPhail was born in Scotland and graduated with honors in geography from the University of Glasgow in 1986. He then came to the United States to pursue a master’s degree in geography at UCLA, specializing in demographics and urban planning.

After graduating in 1988, he worked for a computer mapping company in San Diego. He then accepted a position as the demographer for Virginia Beach City Public Schools where he was responsible for forecasting school enrollment and planning the location of new schools and creating their attendance boundaries.

In 1996, he came back to San Diego to become the demographer for the San Diego Unified School District. After 21 years, he retired as Director of the Instructional Facilities Planning Department, responsible for the district’s demographic forecasting and analysis, mapping, facilities capacity analysis and working with charter schools to provide facilities space under the state’s Proposition 39. He was also the district’s technical lead for the 2011 redistricting of the SDUSD Board Trustee districts.

Commissioner MacPhail has lived in Del Mar Heights, University City, Kensington, Mira Mesa and Sorrento Valley. For the past 20 years, he has lived in North Park, and served for many years as president of his homeowners’ association.