Oxford Mathematician James Maynard has been appointed Research Professor and receives a Wolfson Merit Award from the Royal Society. The Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award is a prestigious award intended to attract or retain respected scientists of outstanding achievement and potential.

Professor Maynard's project, 'Structure in the primes, with applications', aims to develop techniques to understand the statistical properties of the distribution of prime numbers - a central problem in number theory. The project consists of three large projects to be investigated over a five-year period. The projects follow the common theme of studying classical problems in analytic number theory by attempting to classify counter-examples, should they exist. This approach has been remarkably successful in analytic arguments, and is an example of a common connection between analysis, combinatorics and algebra. The underlying techniques also provide flexible and universal means of answering rigorously many real-world questions about primes.

James Maynard is one of the brightest young stars in world mathematics at the moment, having made dramatic advances in analytic number theory in the years immediately following his 2013 doctorate. These advances have brought him worldwide attention in mathematics and beyond. Just 30, he has already gained many markers of distinction, including the European Mathematical Society Prize, the Ramanujan Prize and the Whitehead Prize. He will be an invited speaker at the quadrennial International Congress of Mathematicians in 2018. He also holds a Clay Research Fellowship (2013-18), the most prestigious early career position in world mathematics.

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