Michael Coey received a BA degree in physics from Cambridge University in 1966, and a PhD from the University of Manitoba in 1971. He worked as a researcher in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in the 1970s, before moving to Trinity College Dublin, where he has been Professor of Experimental Physics since 1986.

Michael Coey has broad interests in magnetism, spanning materials hard and soft, crystalline and amorphous, metallic, semiconducting and insulating as well as magnetic phenomena and devices. He coordinated the ‘Concerted European Action on Magnets’ (1984-94), a pioneering group of academic and industrial researchers devoted to all aspect of the understanding, development an application of rare-earth iron permanent magnets. More recently, he led the Oxide Spin Electronics Network, OXSEN 1996-2000. Currently he is Deputy Director of Ireland’s nanoscience centre CRANN. He serves as Divisional Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters and on the editorial board of the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials.

His main research interests at present are in spin electronics, including magnetic semiconductors, as well as magnetotransport and magnetoelectrochemistry. He has published more than 500 papers, and is co-author of books on Magnetic Glasses and Permanent Magnetism. Michael Coey is the recipient of the Charles Chree medal of the Institute of Physics, and the gold medal of the Royal Irish Academy. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Science.