Derek van der Kooy received a M.Sc. in Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D in Anatomy, first at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, and finishing in the Department of Anatomy at the University of Toronto. Dr. van der Kooy gained postdoctoral research experience at Cambridge University in England and at the Salk Institute in California. In 1981, Derek became an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986, then served as Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Toronto from 1991- 2002, and has since become a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics.