David J. C. MacKay

David MacKay
David MacKay (photo by David Stern)
Born	April 22, 1967 (1967-04-22) (age 44)[1]
Fields	Machine learning, Information Theory and Sustainable energy
Institutions	University of Cambridge, California Institute of Technology, Department of Energy and Climate Change
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Doctoral advisor	John Hopfield
Doctoral students	David Stern[2]
Known for	Sustainable Energy - without the hot air[3]
Notable awards	Fellow of the Royal Society
Spouse	Ramesh Ghiassi[4]

David John Cameron MacKay, FRS, (born April 22, 1967) is the professor of natural philosophy in the department of Physics at the University of Cambridge^[5] and chief scientific adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).^[6] Before being appointed to the DECC, MacKay was most well known as author of the book Sustainable Energy — Without the Hot Air.^[3][7].

Life

MacKay was born the fifth child of Donald MacCrimmon MacKay and Valerie MacKay. His elder brother Robert S. MacKay FRS (born in 1956) is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick. He was educated at Newcastle High School (later Newcastle-under-Lyme School) and represented Britain in the International Physics Olympiad in Yugoslavia in 1985, receiving the first prize for experimental work. MacKay went up to Trinity College, Cambridge and received a Bachelor of Arts in Natural Sciences (Experimental and Theoretical Physics) in 1988. He went to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as a Fulbright Scholar. His supervisor in the graduate programme in Computation and Neural Systems was John Joseph Hopfield. He was awarded a PhD in 1992^[8].

In January 1992 MacKay was made 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 a Readership and in 2003 to a Professorship in Natural Philosophy. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 2009^{[citation needed]}.

MacKay's contributions^[9][10] in machine learning and information theory include the development of Bayesian methods ^[11] for neural networks^[12], the rediscovery (with Radford M. Neal) of low-density parity-check codes^[13], and the invention of Dasher^[14], a software application for communication especially popular with those who cannot use a traditional keyboard^[15]. In 2003, his book Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms^[16] was published.

His interests beyond research include the development of effective teaching methods and African development; he taught regularly at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cape Town from its foundation in 2003 to 2006. In 2008 he completed a book on energy consumption and energy production without fossil fuels called Sustainable Energy — Without the Hot Air. MacKay used £10,000 of his own money to publish the book, and the initial print run of 5,000 sold within days.^[17] The book received praise from The Economist^[18], The Guardian^[17], and Bill Gates, who called it "one of the best books on energy that has been written."^[19][20] Like his textbook on Information theory, MacKay makes the book available for free online.

David MacKay was appointed to be Chief Scientific Advisor of the Department of Energy and Climate Change in September 2009 to take up the post on 1 October 2009.^[6]

MacKay has an Erdős number of 2, and is a vegetarian.^[21]

References

1. ^ http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/bio.html David MacKay personal autobiography
2. ^ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/dstern/ David Stern at Microsoft Research
3. ^ ^{a b} Mackay, David (2009). Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air. UIT Cambridge. ISBN 0-9544529-3-3. http://www.withouthotair.com/. 
4. ^ http://rameshanddavid.blogspot.com/ Ramesh and David
5. ^ http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/ David JC MacKay Homepage at the University of Cambridge
6. ^ ^{a b} DECC press release
7. ^ "Britons of the Year", The Daily Telegraph (London): p 15, December 29, 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/review-of-2009/6904065/Britons-of-the-Year-2009.html 
8. ^ http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/bio2.html David MacKay Academic autobiography
9. ^ http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/m/MacKay:David_J=_C=.html David MacKay in DBLP
10. ^ http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=david+mackay David MacKay in Google Scholar
11. ^ MacKay, D. J. C. (1992). "A Practical Bayesian Framework for Backpropagation Networks". Neural Computation 4 (3): 448–472. doi:10.1162/neco.1992.4.3.448.  edit
12. ^ MacKay, D. J. C. (1992). "Bayesian Interpolation". Neural Computation 4 (3): 415–447. doi:10.1162/neco.1992.4.3.415.  edit
13. ^ MacKay, D. J. C.; Neal, R. M. (1996). "Near Shannon limit performance of low density parity check codes". Electronics Letters 32 (18): 1645. doi:10.1049/el:19961141.  edit
14. ^ Wills, S. A.; MacKay, D. J. C. (2006). "DASHER—An Efficient Writing System for Brain–Computer Interfaces?". IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering 14 (2): 244–246. doi:10.1109/TNSRE.2006.875573. PMID 16792304.  edit
15. ^ Ward, D. J.; MacKay, D. J. C. (2002). "Artificial intelligence: Fast hands-free writing by gaze direction". Nature 418 (6900): 838–838. doi:10.1038/418838a. PMID 12192400.  edit
16. ^ MacKay, David J. C. (September 2003). Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64298-1. http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/book.html. 
17. ^ ^{a b} Leo Hickman (30 April 2009). "Power to the People". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/30/david-mckay-sustainable-energy. Retrieved 14 January 2011. 
18. ^ "Meltdown". The Economist. 8 April 2009. http://www.economist.com/node/13437900?story_id=13437900. Retrieved 14 January 2011. 
19. ^ Bill Gates (15 January 2010). "Clear Thinking on the Topic of Energy". The Gates Notes. http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Learning/article.aspx?ID=61. Retrieved 14 January 2011. 
20. ^ "YouTube - ‪How Many Light Bulbs? with David MacKay From Cambridge Ideas‬‏". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRQB2YXUxvY. Retrieved 28th June 2011. 
21. ^ David MacKay (7 February 2010). "David MacKay: Some biographical stuff...". web homepage. Cambridge University. http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/AboutMe.html. Retrieved 2010-03-29. 

Persondata
Name	Mackay, David J. C.
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Date of birth	1967-04-22
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death