David J. C. MacKay continued his education at Trinity College, Cambridge, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences (Experimental and theoretical physics) in 1988. He went to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as a Fulbright Scholar, where his supervisor was John Hopfield. He was awarded a PhD in 1992. In January 1992 MacKay was appointed the Royal Society Smithson Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge, continuing his cross-disciplinary research in the Cavendish Laboratory, the Department of Physics of the University of Cambridge. In 1995 he was made a University Lecturer in the Cavendish Laboratory. He was promoted in 1999 to
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. Its primary mission is research into and development of fusion as an energy source. PPPL grew out of the top secret Cold War project to control thermonuclear reactions, called Project Matterhorn. In 1961, after declassification, Project Matterhorn was renamed the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. PPPL is located on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey. This is some distance from the main Princeton campus, but the lab has a Princeton address. In 1950,