John McKay was at Manchester University until 1964 as a student, research assistant and Nuffield Research Fellow. During this time he worked on the Manchester Atlas. He moved to Edinburgh University for 3 years working with Douglas Munn on algebra and computing. He joined the Atlas Laboratory as a Research Fellow in 1967 and stayed until 1969. His subsequent career included:
Among his remarkable discoveries in modern mathematics are the McKay correspondenceand Monstrous Moonshine. The term Monstrous Moonshine was coined by Princeton mathematician John Conway to describe the mysterious connection between two seemingly unrelated domains, sporadic groups and modular invariants, initiated by McKay's observations.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2000, and won the 2003 CRM-Fields Prize for Mathematics, the most prestigious distinction given to mathematicians in Canada.
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.