Mathematics

The College has a distinguished tradition in mathematics.  Recent research of the College mathematicians has centred around algebra, geometry and mathematical aspects of quantum field theory.  There is a strong thematic connection with the work of physicists at the college, including Emeritus Fellow John Cardy and current Senior Research Fellows Gavin Salam and Paul Fendley.

There are presently three mathematicians in the College. Francis Brown, who works on problems at the intersection of algebraic geometry, number theory, and quantum field and string theory, was elected to a Senior Research Fellowship in 2014. Kyle Pratt, an analytic number theorist, was elected to a Post-Doctoral Research fellowship in 2019. Vladimir Markovic, who works on low dimensional geometry, topology and dynamics; and functional and geometric analysis, was elected to a Senior Research Fellowship in 2020.

The two Emeritus mathematics fellows are active researchers in mathematics: Dan Segal works in group theory and related topics in Lie algebras, commutative algebra and Diophantine decision problems; Graeme Segal’s recent work has mainly been in quantum field theory and geometry.

Former mathematicians holding Post-Doctoral Research Fellowships include: Simon Donaldson, Marcus du Sautoy, and Michael McQuillan.  Visiting Fellows in mathematics have included Jonathan Alperin, Samuel Gitler, Walter Feit, Tony Joseph, Leonard Scott, Avinoam Mann, Aner Shalev, Geoff Robinson, Graeme Wake, Yuri Berest, Martin Barlow, Gus Lehrer, Fernando Rodriguez-Villegas, David Ben-Zvi and Steve Smith.