David MacKay: Energy and Information

One-Day Meeting

• 27 March 2026, 09:00 – 17:45
• Cambridge University Engineering Department

This event has passed In-person Lecture Online Lecture Lent Term

• Event cost: Free
• Disabled access?: Yes
• Booking required: No

Share:

• Tweet

Photo: Professor Sir David MacKay (1967-2016).

Overview

Professor Sir David MacKay (1967-2016) made fundamental contributions to both public and theoretical understandings of energy and of information. He served as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change and was Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Cavendish Laboratory before being appointed as the inaugural Regius Professor of Engineering. He was a Fellow of Darwin College. 

This one-day meeting of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, dedicated to his memory, considers both the urgent challenges of sustainable energy resources and the global opportunities arising from information technologies. We will be addressing the two main themes of his work: machine learning, information theory and Bayesian inference, together with sustainable energy. The meeting marks the tenth anniversary of David’s death, with speakers who worked with David, build on his contributions in the field of energy and information, and share his values on the importance of clear and accessible communication.

The meeting in Cambridge University Engineering Department is open to all to attend, without charge. The lectures will be live-streamed; edited recordings will later be made available through the Cambridge Philosophical Society website. Registration for both in-person and virtual attendance is recommended.

David MacKay is remembered by many with great affection and respect as a colleague, mentor and friend. We have set up a website with personal tributes of David at https://davidmackay.uk

You will need to make your own arrangements for lunch.

You are welcome to buy sandwiches, cakes, snacks and drinks in the Engineering Department’s cafeteria on the second floor (only card payments are accepted), and you may also use this room to eat your own food.

Hot Numbers, just across Trumpington Street, does excellent beverages (from 7am!) and hot food. Plenty of other options to be found in the centre of Cambridge, a ten-minute walk away.

Royal Society Biographical Memoir: Sir David John Cameron MacKay

Malcolm Longair, Michael Cates; Sir David John Cameron MacKay FRS. 22 April 1967 — 14 April 2016. Biogr. Mems Fell. R. Soc. 1 January 2017; (63): 443–465. 

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.2017.0013

Program

09.00	Welcome, introduction.	Professor Deborah Prentice (Vice Chancellor) Professor Colm Durkan (Head of Engineering Dept) Dr Claire Barlow (Cambridge Philosophical Society)
09.30	David and Entropy	Professor Robert MacKay (Warwick University)
10.15	Science and policy	Dr Rob Doubleday (Centre for Science and Policy, Cambridge University)
10.45-11.15	Tea/coffee
11.15	Synthesising data-based approaches to climate change	Professor Emily Shuckburgh (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero / Cambridge University)
12.00	David at DECC: Impact and legacy.	Moira Wallace, Ravi Gurumurthy (NESTA)
12.45-14.00	Lunch: Own arrangements
14.00	Dave MacKay: Bayes, Neural Nets and Sustainable Energy	Professor Steve Gull (Cambridge University)
14.45	Meaningful Measurement for AI: from Assumptions to Actions	Dr Hanna Wallach (Microsoft Research / University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
15.30	Tea/coffee
16.00	Probabilistic AI in 2026	Professor Zoubin Ghahramani (Google Deepmind / Cambridge University)
16.45	Information, Energy and Intelligence	Professor Neil Lawrence (Computer Science and Technology, Cambridge University)
17.30-17.45	Closing remarks	Professor Alan Blackwell (Computer Science and Technology / Darwin College)

Speaker Biographies

Rob Doubleday has been Executive Director of the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Science and Policy since September 2012. Previously Rob established CSaP’s research programme. His research interests include the role of science, evidence and expertise in contemporary societies, in particular the relationship between scientific advice, public policy and democracy. His research develops collaborative methods of working with scientists and engineers on the public policy dimensions of their research.

In 2010 Rob spent a year on secondment to the Government Office for Science, working on policies to promote engagement between academia and government. Prior to this Rob was the principal investigator of a three-year Wellcome Trust funded project that studied the policy and public dimensions of nanotechnologies. He has published widely on expert advice and public policy, public engagement with emerging technologies, and on public policy dimensions of scientific knowledge. Rob’s recent publications include Future Directions for Citizen Science and Public Policy (CSaP, 2021).

Rob is a Fellow of Christ’s College. He has degrees in Chemistry (Imperial College, London) and Science and Technology Policy (SPRU, University of Sussex). He has a PhD in Geography and Science & Technology Studies from University College London and studied at the Harvard Kennedy School on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Steve Gull was educated in St Alban’s School before coming to St John’s College, Cambridge to read Natural Sciences. Steve graduated with a first class degree in Theoretical Physics and went on to do a PhD in the Mullard Radio Astronomy Group (Cavendish Laboratory) with Prof Malcolm Longair on the Dynamics of Radio Sources. Post PhD Steve became a JRF at St John’s and then a University Lecturer in MRAO. Steve was made Professor of Physics in 2002, becoming Emeritus Professor in 2016.Together with John Skilling, Steve did seminal work in applying Bayesian methods, particularly maximum entropy techniques, to problems both in physics and in the wider world. Maximum Entropy Data Consultants was founded in 1979 and other commercial ventures followed in subsequent years. With Lasenby and Doran, Steve also pioneered the use of Geometric Algebra in Physics.Outside academia Steve has been a keen rower, cricketer and cyclist. 

Professor Zoubin Ghahramani is VP of Frontier AI at Google DeepMind, as well as Professor of Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Before joining Google, he was Chief Scientist and VP for AI at Uber. He served as the founding Cambridge Director of the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and AI. He has worked and studied at the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, the University of Toronto, the Gatsby Unit at University College London, and Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on probabilistic approaches to machine learning and artificial intelligence, and he has published about 300 research papers on these topics. He was co-founder of Geometric Intelligence (which became Uber AI Labs) and has advised a number of AI and machine learning companies. In 2015, Zoubin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his contributions to machine learning. He is the winner of the 2021 Royal Society Milner Award for outstanding achievements in computer science in Europe, and is Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. In 2023, Zoubin led the UK government's Future of Compute Review.

Ravi Gurumurthy is the Chief Executive of Nesta, the UK’s innovation Foundation. Nesta’s mission is to design, test and scale solutions to society's biggest challenges, from sustainability, and health to educational inequality.

Ravi also leads the Behavioural Insights Team, also known as the ‘Nudge Unit.’ BIT has grown from a small team in No 10 Downing Street to a 250-person global social purpose consultancy, and subsidiary of Nesta.

Prior to joining Nesta, Ravi co-founded and led the Airbel Innovation Lab at the International Rescue Committee. He was responsible for designing new products and services for people affected by crises in over 40 countries.

Ravi worked in the UK government from 1999 to 2013. He was an advisor and speechwriter to the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, led the creation of Every Child Matters and the Children Act 2004, and the world’s first legally binding Climate legislation.

Ravi has held a number of non-executive roles, and is currently NED for NHS England, and lead NED for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.

Robert MacKay FRS FInstP FIMA is a Professor in the Mathematics Institute of the University of Warwick and Director of Mathematical Interdisciplinary Research at Warwick. He was Professor of Nonlinear Dynamics at Cambridge (1995-2000), founding Director of Warwick’s Centre for Complexity Science from 2007-15, and President of the (UK) Institute of Mathematics and its Applications for 2012-13. 

His principal area of research is the theory and applications of Nonlinear Dynamics. Highlights are the discovery and renormalisation explanation of how invariant tori break for magnetic fields and Hamiltonian systems; development of a method to establish regions through which no invariant tori pass; a proof of existence of spatially localised time-periodic movements in networks of oscillators and analysis of their stability, interaction and mobility; construction and proof of a mechanical example of an Anosov system (uniformly hyperbolic); and the construction of indecomposable spatially extended deterministic dynamical systems exhibiting more than one space-time phase. More recently, he diversified into biomathematics (molecular motors, cochlear mechanics), complexity science (in particular, the control of multivariate probability distributions), energy research (storage and demand management), data science (calibrations of panels, detection of oscillations, financial stability), cosmology (a controversial theory of gamma ray bursts), and economics (a thermodynamic approach to macroeconomics). But he still maintains activity in nonlinear dynamics, notably applications of the flux over a saddle scenario (e.g. chemical reactions, plasma physics, ship capsize), and enhanced understanding of guiding-centre dynamics of charged particles in magnetic fields. His research was recognised by the first Stephanos Pnevmatikos International Award for Research in Nonlinear Phenomena (1993), Junior (1994) and Senior (2015) Whitehead prizes of the London Mathematical Society, election to Fellowships of the Royal Society (2000), the (UK) Institute of Physics (2000) and the (UK) Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (2003), and entry to the ISI Highly cited list under Mathematics in 2008. 

He has extensive research leadership and management experience, including establishing and running the Nonlinear Systems Laboratory at Warwick with Rand (1986-95) and the Nonlinear Centre in Cambridge (1995-2000), contributing scientific direction to a King's College Cambridge research programme on Spatially Extended Dynamics (1998-2002), winning and coordinating an EC Research and Training Network on "Localisation and energy transfer" (2000-4), leading 8 other research projects and taking part in many more, taking over Directorship of Mathematical Interdisciplinary Research at Warwick in 2000, establishing the "Complexity Complex" in 2006 (an association of research activities in Complexity Science at the University of Warwick) and the Centre for Complexity Science in 2007 with Ball, including its doctoral training centre in Complexity Science and follow-up on Mathematics for real-world systems, and supervising 29 PhD students and 34 postdoctoral researchers. His current research interests include Robustness of near-integrability for magnetic fields with low or reversing shear, Cross-field energy transport by interaction of charged particles in a magnetic field, Design of stellarators, Action-minimising orbits for Lagrangian systems, Discommensurations for tilted Frenkel-Kontorova chains, Bifurcation diagrams for families of vector fields on a torus, Aggregation methods for Markov flows, Management of complex systems, Avoiding synchronization in frequency-sensitive demand management of electrical power, Detection of oscillations in power flow, Inferring value from market prices, Propagation of value by constrained investors, Compression of payment networks, Design of panel assessments, Trophic analysis of directed networks, Safety criteria for ship capsize, Thermal macroeconomics, and Riemann’s hypothesis.

Neil Lawrence is the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the Department of Computer Science, University of Cambridge. Neil obtained his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Southampton and his PhD in Variational Inference from Cambridge, working with Chris Bishop. He has been working on machine learning models for over 20 years. He recently returned to academia after three years as Director of Machine Learning at Amazon. His main interest is the interaction of machine learning with the physical world. He is a Senior AI Fellowship at the Alan Turing Institute, a visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield and the co-host of the podcast Talking Machines. Neil founded the company Trent AI in 2025. Neil has also become interested in public understanding of machine learning, policy decisions around machine learning and the implications for data governance.

As well as his departmental roles, Neil serves on the boards of many foundations and conferences, including AISTATS and Ellis, and is also on the Scientific Advisory Council of ArXiv. His book, The Atomic Human explores human intelligence in a world where AI is increasingly important.

Professor Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero / Professor of Environmental Data Science, University of Cambridge / Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) Professor Emily Shuckburgh CBE is a world-leading climate scientist and science communicator, who is the director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge’s ambitious climate change initiative. Emily was appointed the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) in November 2025. Shuckburgh is a mathematician and Professor of Environmental Data Science at Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology (CST). She leads the UK national research funding body’s (UKRI) Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks (AI4ER) and is a director of the Centre for Landscape Regeneration (CLR). Professor Shuckburgh worked for more than a decade at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) where her work included leading a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate. President-elect of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), and Honorary Fellow of the Energy Institute, and Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey, and of Darwin College, Cambridge, Emily has also undertaken research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and École Normale Supérieure (ENS). She advises on climate to the UK Government and is a Friend of COP26. Emily is co-author with HM King Charles III and Tony Juniper of the Ladybird Book: Climate Change and was awarded an OBE in 2016 and a CBE in 2025, for services to science and the public communication of science. 

Moira Wallace was Permanent Secretary of the Department of Energy and Climate Change from its formation in 2008 until 2012. In this role she oversaw the appointment of David Mackay as the department’s first Chief Scientific Advisor and worked closely with him after his appointment. Moira began her civil service career in the Treasury, then worked in Downing Street as Private Secretary to Prime Ministers Major and Blair. In 1997 she became Director of the newly formed Social Exclusion Unit which she led for four years, developing new government strategies on cross-cutting social policy issues. Between 2002 and 2005 she set up and ran the government’s Office for Criminal Justice Reform, then served as Director General of Crime and Policing in the Home Office, before being appointed as DECC’s permanent secretary in 2008. From 2013 to 2018 Moira was Provost of Oriel College Oxford, also leading Oxford University’s review of its access and admissions. She is currently a Visiting Professor of Practice at LSE and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, where she writes about social policy and lessons to be learned from successful policies in the past. 

Hanna Wallach is a VP & Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft Research New York City. Her work focuses on understanding and influencing the ways that AI systems and society shape one another across multiple scales and over multiple timeframes. As part of this, she leads an interdisciplinary applied science team that bridges research and practice in the space of responsible AI, with a focus on measuring and evaluating generative AI systems. Her work has been recognized with best paper awards at AISTATS, CHI, and NAACL, as well as honors including Glamour magazine's "35 Women Under 35 Who Are Changing the Tech Industry" and the CRA-WP Borg Early Career Award. Hanna is committed to increasing diversity in computing and has co-founded several initiatives addressing the underrepresentation of women in machine learning and in free and open source software development.

Event Video

---

Location