 A graduate of the University of Melbourne and Cambridge University , where he earned his doctorate at the Cavendish Laboratory , Massey became an independent lecturer in Mathematical Physics at the Queen 's University of Belfast in 1933 . He was appointed Goldsmid Professor of Applied Mathematics at University College London , in 1938 . During the Second World War , Massey worked at the Admiralty Research Laboratory , where he helped devise countermeasures for German magnetic naval mines , and at the Admiralty Mining Establishment in Havant , where he helped develop British naval mines . In 1943 , Mark Oliphant persuaded the Admiralty to release Massey to work on the Manhattan Project . He joined Oliphant 's British Mission at the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California , where they worked on the electromagnetic isotope separation process . When Oliphant returned to Britain in 1945 , Massey took over the Berkeley Mission . 
