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
Blackett Laboratory Blackett Laboratory The Blackett Laboratory (named after Patrick Blackett) is part of the Imperial College Faculty of Natural Sciences and has housed the Department of Physics at Imperial College London since its completion in 1961. The building is located on the corner of Prince Consort Road and Queen's Gate, Kensington, and the department ranks 11th on QS's 2018 world university rankings. The Physics facility at Imperial College London was initially in the Royal College of Science, built in 1906, which also housed the Chemistry Department. From 1906 to 1932 the head of the Physics Department was Prof. H. L. Callender,