The Martingale Foundation has announced a major expansion of its postgraduate scholarship programme for STEM students, with a commitment to support 800 Scholars across its partner universities including here in Oxford by the end of the decade. Applications for 2026 entry are now open.
The Martingale Scholarships provide fully funded support to exceptional postgraduate students from low socio-economic backgrounds, enabling them to pursue world-leading research at top UK universities, including the University of Oxford. The scholarships cover tuition fees, research costs, and a tax-free living stipend, and include access to a tailored development programme offering mentoring, leadership training, and academic network-building opportunities.
Since the Foundation launched in 2022, over 100 Scholars have been supported across ten UK universities. At Oxford, the Martingale programme has already supported students here in Oxford Mathematics, and new opportunities are emerging in high-demand areas such as Artificial Intelligence, nuclear research, and biomedical data science.
The expansion is underpinned by over £25 million in donor funding, including major contributions from XTX Markets, Google DeepMind, UK Atomic Energy Authority, Alzheimer’s Research UK and the University of Manchester’s SATURN doctoral programme. XTX Markets, the founding donor, has pledged an additional £10.5 million to support more than 100 Masters and PhD Scholarships, including a new focus on AI.
Applications for the 2026 round are now open. Full details
We are delighted and proud to announce that the Mathematical Institute and Balliol College will be seeking to appoint the first Vicky Neale Scholar, for entry in academic year 2026/27 to study undergraduate mathematics or joint honours mathematics at Balliol College.
Vicky Neale, who died in May 2023, was a passionate advocate of mathematics and mathematicians, especially young mathematicians for whom she was and still is such an inspiration. This scholarship is a fitting tribute to Vicky, her family and all who worked and learnt with her.
The Scholarship will be awarded to a student ordinarily resident in Europe (outside the UK), and not eligible for Home Fees. Among eligible students, the Scholarship will be awarded based on academic ability. The Scholarship will cover all tuition fees for the fee liability period of the course, and provides a grant for living expenses. No separate application for the scholarship will be required.
Congratulations to Oxford Mathematician Alain Goriely who has been awarded the 2025 LMS/IMA David Crighton Medal. The award recognises his deep and influential mathematical insights into mechanical and biological processes and materials, his support of early career mathematicians, and his contributions to the public understanding of mathematics and its applications.
Alain's work embraces a broad range of problems including dynamical systems, the mechanics of biological growth, the modelling of the brain, the theoretical foundations of mechanics, the dynamics of curves, knots, and rods, the modelling of cancer, the development of new photovoltaic devices and the modelling of lithium-ion batteries. Alain is passionate about the study and development of mathematical methods for applied sciences.
Educated at the L’Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Alain moved to the University of Arizona where he was professor before coming to Oxford in 2010 as the inaugural Chair in Mathematical Modelling. He is Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial Mathematics (OCIAM) and of the International Brain and Mechanics Lab (IBMTL). He is a Professorial Fellow of St Catherine's College.
The David Crighton Medal is awarded jointly by the LMS and the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications. The award ceremony and Crighton Lecture will be held in spring 2026.
Simon Singh - From Theorems to Serums, From Cryptography to Cosmology … and The Simpsons
Join science writer Simon Singh on a whistle-stop tour through two decades of his bestselling books. 'Fermat’s Last Theorem' looks at one of the biggest mathematical puzzles of the millennium; 'The Code Book' shares the secrets of cryptology; 'Big Bang' explores the history of cosmology; 'Trick or Treatment' asks some hard questions about alternative medicine; and 'The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets' explains how TV writers, throughout the show’s 35-year history, have smuggled in mathematical jokes.
Wednesday 06 August 2025, 5-6pm Andrew Wiles Building, Mathematical Institute, Oxford
Please email @email to register to attend in person.
The Vicky Neale Public Lectures are a partnership between the Clay Mathematics Institute, PROMYS and Oxford Mathematics. The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Three Oxford Mathematicians have won London Mathematical Society (LMS) Prizes for 2025. Nigel Hitchin has won the De Morgan Medal, Helen Byrne has won the Naylor Prize and Lectureship in Applied Mathematics and Vidit Nanda has won a Whitehead Prize.
An undergraduate in Oxford, Nigel Hitchin was Rouse Ball Professor in Cambridge until 1997 when he became Oxford's Savilian Professor of Geometry. He retired in 2016 after winning the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences that year. Nigel's work has covered many areas on the interface of differential geometry, algebraic geometry and the equations of theoretical physics. He is perhaps best known for the integrable system which bears his name, and his work on instantons and monopoles. His current interests include the geometry of the intersection of two quadrics, a classical object in algebraic geometry which now reveals in a concrete way some of the features of the geometric Langlands programme.
Helen Byrne is a leading expert in mathematical biology at the University of Oxford. With over 25 years of experience, she specialises in developing mathematical models for biomedical systems, particularly in the field of mathematical oncology. Her research focuses on using mathematical, computational, topological, and statistical modelling techniques to study tumour growth, immune evasion, and treatment response mechanisms. Helen holds a joint appointment at the University of Oxford’s Mathematical Institute and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and is a tutorial fellow of Keble College. She has won a number of awards including the Society of Mathematical Biology (SMB)’s Leah Edelstein-Keshet prize and was named an SMB Fellow in 2020.
Vidit Nanda is a Professor of Mathematics here in Oxford and a fellow of Pembroke College. He works at the interface of algebraic topology, geometry and data science and is a member of the Data Science, Topology and Geometry groups in Oxford Mathematics. He previously worked at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and at the Turing Institute (as one of its first Research Fellows).
Since the autumn of 2022, Conrad Shawcross' artworks have lived and breathed in our building. It is perhaps their natural home given they are inspired by science and, in particular, mathematics. We are delighted to announce that they are staying for another year.
The show includes all Conrad's geometric and philosophical investigations into the tetrahedron ( including Schism, pictured); the four Beacons, two coloured, perforated disks moving in counter rotation to one another, patterning the light through the non-repeating pattern of holes; and the Perimeter Studies, a sequence of ten works, five structural and five solid, exploring the geometry and spatial properties of the Platonic solids .
Oxford Mathematician and computer scientist Ursula Martin has been appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to Science and Education in the King's Birthday Honours 2025.
Professor Dame Ursula Martin is an Emeritus Professor in Oxford Mathematics, and a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. She has also worked at the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, St Andrews and Illinois, and at Queen Mary University of London. She is a Fellow of both the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The first woman to hold a number of senior roles, she has been a steadfast advocate and mentor for women in computer science and mathematics, leading initiatives in the UK and US. She has also held a variety of UK and international policy roles.
Her research, initially in algebra, logic and the use of computers to create mathematical proofs, broadened to encompass wider social and cultural approaches to understanding the circulation and impact of computer science and mathematics. With international partners ranging from defence companies to computer museums, her unique collaborative research portfolio spans mathematics, computer science, and the humanities, with wide-ranging academic, practical, and cultural impact. She is particularly known for leading the first scholarly investigation of the mathematics of Ada Lovelace, and is currently supported by the Leverhulme Trust to investigate the impact of artificial intelligence on mathematics.
Ursula said: ‘I am delighted and humbled to receive this honour. I truly appreciate my good fortune in working with colleagues from so many disciplines within and beyond the UK, in organisations ranging from high-tech companies to libraries and museums."
Dame Ursula joins fellow Oxford Mathematicians Frances Kirwan and Alison Etheridge as DBE.
Mathematical models are used to inform decisions across many sectors including climate change, finance, and epidemics. But as Erica Thompson explains in this Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture, models are not perfect representations of the real world – they are partial, uncertain and often biased. What, then, does responsible modelling look like? And how can we apply this ethical framework to new AI modelling methods?
Wednesday 4th June, 5-6pm, Mathematical Institute, Oxford OX2 6ED
Erica Thompson is Associate Professor of Modelling for Decision Making at UCL’s Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP), and the author of 'Escape From Model Land' (2022).
Please email @email to register to attend in person.
The lecture will be broadcast on the Oxford Mathematics YouTube Channel on Wednesday 25 June at 5-6pm and any time after (no need to register for the online version).
The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Oxford Mathematician Mike Giles is a computational mathematician who has worked at the interface with both engineering and computer science. His early research was on computational fluid dynamics, developing algorithms and software which is today used by Rolls-Royce in the design of its aircraft engines. More recently, he moved into computational finance and more generally the area of Uncertainty Quantification, developing advanced Monte Carlo simulation methods. Throughout, he has also conducted research on high performance computing, including the use of GPUs.
After an BA in Mathematics at Cambridge in 1981, Mike obtained a PhD from the MIT Dept of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1985 and then joined the faculty in the same department. He moved to Oxford University's Computing Laboratory in 1992, initially as Rolls-Royce Reader in Computational Fluid Dynamics, later becoming a Professor of Scientific Computing. In 2008 he moved to Oxford's Mathematical Institute where he was Head of Department from 2018 to 2022 and is now Professor of Numerical Analysis. He is also a Fellow of the IMA and SIAM.
Mike says, via ChatGPT: "Delighted to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. I plan to celebrate in the traditional scientific way: mild astonishment, followed by tea."
Oxford Mathematics now has 32 Fellows of the Royal Society among its current and retired members: Fernando Alday, John Ball, Bryan Birch, Emmanuel Breuillard, Martin Bridson, Philip Candelas, Marcus du Sautoy, Artur Ekert, Alison Etheridge, Alain Goriely, Ben Green, Roger Heath-Brown, Nigel Hitchin, Ehud Hrushovski, Dominic Joyce, Jon Keating, Frances Kirwan, Terry Lyons, Philip Maini, James Maynard, Jim Murray, John Ockendon, Roger Penrose, Jonathan Pila, Graeme Segal, Endre Süli, Martin Taylor, Ulrike Tillmann, Nick Trefethen, Andrew Wiles, Alex Wilkie, and Mike himself, of course.
Many of the artists that we encounter are completely unaware of the mathematics that bubble beneath their craft, while some consciously use it for inspiration. Our instincts might tell us that these two subjects are incompatible forces with nothing in common, mathematics being the realm of precise logic and art being the realm of emotion and aesthetics. But what if we’re wrong?
In this Oxford Mathematics Public Lecture, Marcus du Sautoy unpacks how we make art, why a creative mindset is vital for discovering mathematics, and how a fundamental connection to the natural world intrinsically links the two subjects.
Marcus du Sautoy is a mathematician, author and broadcaster. He is Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science in Oxford.
Wednesday 21 May, 5.30pm, Mathematical Institute, Oxford. Please email @email to register to attend in person.
The lecture will be broadcast on the Oxford Mathematics YouTube Channel on Wednesday 11 June at 5-6pm and any time after (no need to register for the online version).
The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
