John McKay is a dual British/Canadian citizen, a mathematician

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 at Concordia University

Concordia University

Concordia University is a comprehensive Canadian public university located in Montreal, Quebec, one of the two universities in the city where English is the primary language of instruction...

, known for his discovery of monstrous moonshine

Monstrous moonshine

In mathematics, monstrous moonshine, or moonshine theory, is a term devised by John Horton Conway and Simon P. Norton in 1979, used to describe the connection between the monster group M and modular functions .- History :Specifically, Conway and Norton, following an initial observationby John...

, his joint construction of some sporadic simple groups, for the McKay (McKay-Alperin) conjecture in representation theory, and for the McKay correspondence relating certain finite group

Finite group

In mathematics and abstract algebra, a finite group is a group whose underlying set G has finitely many elements. During the twentieth century, mathematicians investigated certain aspects of the theory of finite groups in great depth, especially the local theory of finite groups, and the theory of...

s to Lie group

Lie group

In mathematics, a Lie group is a group which is also a differentiable manifold, with the property that the group operations are compatible with the smooth structure...

s.
McKay earned his Bachelor and Diploma in 1961 and 1962 at the University of Manchester

University of Manchester

The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...

,
and his Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in 1971 from the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

.
Since 1974 he works at the Concordia University, since 1979 as a professor in Computer Science.

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

 in 2000, and won the 2003
CRM-Fields-PIMS prize

CRM-Fields-PIMS prize

The CRM-Fields prize was given annually by the Centre de recherches mathématiques and the Fields Institute from 1994 to 2005. From 2006the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences joined the other two institutes awarding the prize, making the CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize.The prize is given for...

.

In April 2007 a Joint Conference was organized by the University of Montreal and Concordia University honouring four decades of the work of John McKay.

External links

• John McKay web page at CRM
• CRM
  Centre de Recherches Mathématiques
  The Centre de Recherches Mathématiques is the first mathematical research institute in Canada. It was founded in 1969, and was recognized as a national research center for the mathematical sciences in 1984....
  
  
• CRM-Fields prize