Oxford Mathematicians Martin Bridson and Yuji Nakatsukasa have been recognised in this year's London Mathematical Society (LMS) awards. Martin wins the prestigious Polya Prize for his foundational contributions to the field of geometric group theory and his exceptional service to the mathematical community. Yuji has been awarded the Whitehead Prize for his significant and wide-ranging contributions to numerical analysis, especially in numerical linear algebra and approximation theory.
Martin Bridson (pictured left) is Whitehead Professor of Pure Mathematics here in Oxford and President of the Clay Mathematics Institute which makes him the guardian of the $1m Millennium Prize Problems. His research interests lie at the interface of geometry, topology, and group theory. Diverse encapsulations of symmetry, quantifications of complexity, and notions of curvature provide unifying themes for much of his work. He is the recipient of many awards and is a Fellow of the Royal Society, only the second Manxman (a native of the Isle of Man) to be so recognised, and the American Mathematics Society. Educated in Oxford and Cornell, he has held positions in Princeton and Geneva and was Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College before returning to Oxford. He is a fellow of Magdalen College.
Yuji Nakatsukasa is a Professor here in Oxford Mathematics and a tutorial fellow at Christ Church College. His research focus is on numerical analysis, with emphasis on randomised algorithms and eigenvalue problems in numerical linear algebra and rational approximation theory. Prior to his current affiliation, he held positions at National Institute of Informatics in Japan, as well as Oxford, Tokyo, and Manchester. Yuji obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics from UC Davis in 2011.
The King has approved the appointment of James Maynard as the new Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He will take up the post in the Mathematical Institute on 1 October 2026, and will also be a professorial fellow of Merton College.
This chair is one of three Regius Professorships of Mathematics in the United Kingdom, the others being at St Andrews and Warwick. The Oxford Regius chair was created in 2016 as part of the 90th birthday celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II. James will succeed the inaugural postholder, Andrew Wiles.
James says of his appointment: "I’m delighted to be appointed as the new Regius Professor of Mathematics. Oxford is a fantastic place to do maths, and I feel exceptionally privileged to have spent most of my career here. It sometimes feels like there are exciting ideas bubbling away and breakthroughs happening in every office of the department. Mathematics is a very special subject where pure abstract thought and logic, often driven by mere curiosity, can lead to breakthroughs improving so many aspects of modern life. I’m rather daunted to follow on from the incredible legacy of Andrew Wiles, but I hope this position can be testament to the ongoing importance and increasing role of mathematics in the world."
Jon Chapman, Head of the Mathematical Institute, said: "We are delighted that James has accepted the Regius Professor of Mathematics. His work has led to some of the most significant advances in number theory of recent decades, and he is widely admired not only for the depth and originality of his research but also for his generosity as a colleague and mentor. As a former Oxford graduate student who has built his academic career here, James exemplifies the extraordinary mathematical talent that our community fosters. I can think of no better person to succeed Andrew Wiles in this prestigious role."
Jennifer Payne, Warden of Merton College, added: “The College offers Professor James Maynard our warmest congratulations on his appointment as the new Regius Professor of Mathematics. It is a fitting recognition of his outstanding contribution to mathematics. We look forward to welcoming him into the College.”
About James Maynard
Professor Maynard is Professor of Number Theory at the Mathematical Institute in Oxford. He took his BA and 'Part III' in Mathematics from Queens' College, Cambridge, followed by a DPhil in Oxford under the supervision of Roger Heath-Brown, completed in 2013. He was then a Fellow by Examination at Magdalen College, Oxford from 2013-17. He held a Clay Fellowship at Oxford before his promotion to professor in 2018. He has also held research and visiting positions at Montreal, Berkeley and at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton. Since 2018 he has been a Professor of Number Theory at the University of Oxford, and a member of St John's College.
James is known for his influential work in analytic number theory, particularly on the distribution of prime numbers. He uses a blend of ideas from analysis, combinatorics and algebra to try to answer old questions in number theory. As a postdoctoral researcher he developed a new sieve method for detecting primes in bounded length intervals, and settled a long-standing conjecture of Paul Erdős on large gaps between primes. He then worked on Diophantine approximation, and in joint work with D. Koukoulopoulos he settled the Duffin-Schaeffer conjecture and dramatically improved upon the work of Schmidt concerning simultaneous approximation by rationals with square denominator. He has published a series of works on the distribution of primes in residue classes which goes beyond what follows from the Generalised Riemann Hypothesis.
James has received numerous prizes for his work, including the Whitehead Prize from the London Mathematical Society in 2015, the European Mathematical Society Prize in 2016, the Cole Prize in Number Theory from the American Mathematical Society in 2020, and the prestigious Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union in 2022 for his "contributions to analytic number theory, which have led to major advances in the understanding of the structure of prime numbers and in Diophantine approximation". He was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2020, as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2023 and as a founding Fellow of the Academy of Mathematical Sciences in 2026. James is an avid Arsenal supporter.
Patrick Farrell has been awarded the 2025 Germund Dahlquist Prize by Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in recognition of outstanding contributions to the numerical solution of differential equations and numerical methods for scientific computing.
Patrick is a professor in the Numerical Analysis group here in Oxford Mathematics and a Tutorial Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford. For 2025 and 2026 he is also the Donatio Universitatis Carolinæ Chair at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University in Prague.
Patrick works on the numerical solution of partial differential equations, with a particular focus on finite element methods; bifurcation analysis of nonlinear PDE; adjoint techniques, their application and automation; and preconditioners and fast solvers. He has applied the numerical techniques he develops to problems in the areas of mixtures, renewable energy, cardiac electrophysiology, glaciology, magnetohydrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and liquid crystals.
Oxford Mathematicians Ben Green and Alex Scott have been awarded European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants. The grants are one of the most prestigious and competitive research awards in the world, providing long-term funding to well-established, leading scientists and scholars who wish to pursue groundbreaking, high-risk projects that push the frontiers of knowledge. The grants are part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme and are each worth up to €2.5 million over a period of five years. A record 3,329 proposals was submitted to the funding round this year, with 9.6% of proposals being selected for funding.
Ben Green’s project will explore questions in pure mathematics about patterns and structure within sets of whole numbers. The project brings together two areas of modern mathematics: additive combinatorics, which studies how sets of numbers behave when they are added together, and higher-order Fourier analysis, which can detect mathematical patterns beyond the reach of classical methods. Ultimately, this could open new ways to understand the hidden structure of numbers.
Ben (pictured left) said on receiving the grant: "it is great to have the approval of colleagues that obtaining an ERC Advanced Grant represents, and a pleasure to acknowledge the collaborators without whom a successful outcome would not have been possible. The grant itself will make it possible to assemble a team of talented early-career researchers in Oxford to work on problems I genuinely care about, and I look forward to starting the recruitment process."
Alex writes of his work: "the goal of my project is to develop new tools for understanding the structure of graphs and networks. For instance, what do we see locally in a large, complicated network? How can we piece together local structure to obtain global information? How do we handle approximate structure or noise? Problems of this type arise in many parts of mathematics and related fields. The project will both attack longstanding questions in the area such as the Erdos-Hajnal Conjecture, which concerns the subtle interaction between local and global structure, and lay foundations for the new area of coarse graph theory, which is concerned with the large-scale geometric structure of graphs.
"I’m delighted that the ERC has decided to fund this project, showing their support for fundamental mathematical research. I am very excited to have the time and resources to pursue this work, alongside a team of talented students and postdocs."
Today sees the pilot launch ofOxford Unbounded,our free online mentoring programme to help students achieve top grades at Maths GCSE/National 5s. Teachers at selected schools across the UK, with a high proportion of students from backgrounds underrepresented at Oxford, have been invited to nominate students in Year 10 (or equivalent).
Oxford mentors, ten this year, all Oxford Mathematics undergraduates, will tutor groups of 4–5 students on a weekly basis during the summer between Y10 and Y11 (or equivalent) and then continue to provide support during Y11. Students will also be invited to a three-day revision residential at the Mathematical Institute and Lincoln College, Oxford during the April before their exams. For 2026-27 over 120 schools applied and 14 schools were selected. Each school then nominated four eligible students giving a total of 56 students enrolled on the programme.
The full programme will start in 27/28, and aims to enrol around 300 students.
We are delighted to introduce our latest exhibition in the Andrew Wiles Building. Visual artist Paul Ouwerkerk has created 30 new paintings where he plays with the perspective plane in paintings that are generated from self-composed number sequences. The handcrafted canvases are the result of a process in which the artist, after defining a rigid grid as starting point, leaves space for intuition and industrious manual application to elaborate towards the final result.
Visually these paintings can often be interpreted as unfolded polyhedra, dissolving into mathematical landscape perspectives. The rule-based compositions are sometimes derailed purposefully during the painting process, as if to ‘break-the-code’. Painting techniques and materials play a pivotal role in the creation of these works and the materialisation of these abstract illusions.
Paul Ouwerkerk lives and works in Amsterdam. He has a background in art, photography and design. His previous work experience is intermingled with the world of architecture, urbanism and landscape design. Since 2017 he has been painting his abstract ‘Dynamic Geometry’ series.
9.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m. from 8 June to 31 December 2026.
Oxford Mathematician Massimiliano Gubinelli has been awarded the 2026 XL Medal for Mathematics by Accademia Nazionale Delle Scienze, Italy's National Academy of Science which was founded in Verona in 1782.
Max is our Wallis Professor of Mathematics, Head of the Stochastic Analysis Group and a Fellow at St Anne's College. His research focuses on rough path theory, stochastic PDEs, and Euclidean quantum field theory, where he has helped develop modern tools for understanding highly irregular systems and random phenomena.
Max has also held positions in Paris and Bonn, and was an invited speaker at the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians.
Francis Brown has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). Francis works in algebraic geometry and mathematical physics. His research ranges from pure mathematics to methods for precision calculations in high-energy particle physics. He is also committed to supporting the mathematical sciences through fundraising and charitable work.
His contributions include resolving conjectures of Deligne on the Riemann sphere minus three points, Goncharov–Manin on moduli spaces of curves, and Hoffman on multiple zeta values, as well as decisive results on several problems of Kontsevich.
His work on the motivic Galois theory of periods and on modular and elliptic iterated integrals has transformed our understanding of amplitudes in quantum field theory and led to major advances in the computation of Feynman integrals, which underpin predictions at the Large Hadron Collider.
Francis is a Professor of Mathematics here in Oxford and has been a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford since 2014, having previously worked at IHES in Paris and the CNRS from 2007.
Francis says of his election: "I am very grateful for this recognition of an area of research which has historically been under-represented in the UK, and for the encouragement it gives to strengthening links between mathematics and physics."
Oxford Mathematics now has 33 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, Mike Giles, 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 Francis himself, of course.
Okay, it isn't technically summer here in the UK, but the asphalt is baking hot and the cows are panting under the trees in the meadow. So what better way to celebrate than staying cool by watching a few maths films.
We have revision tips, the role of mathematics in artificial intelligence, thinking of maths in your native language and thoughts on the real origins of the Fibonacci numbers from Marcus du Sautoy; and then there's the importance of prime numbers in internet security presented by Fields Medallist James Maynard.
Below Stéphanie Abo talks about her work with biologists and the importance of being able to communicate the value of mathematical models.
Shakespeare’s work provides a snapshot of how people made sense of the world around them: how they solved problems (how large is an opposing army?) and how they navigated a complex environment (does the sun rise in the east?).
In this talk Paul will explore how scientific and technological ideas are woven into Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets through actions, words and conversations between characters. He will mention Copernicus twice, once as an over-interpretation. His interest is in how we think within structures, not whether the structures are correct. Almanacs, mirrors and Dee’s vision of applied mathematics will be part of the story. He will also talk about nothing.
Paul Glendinning is the Beyer Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Manchester. His research is in applied dynamical systems and he has been President of the IMA (2022-2023) and Scientific Director of the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh (2016-2021).
Wednesday May 6th 2026, 5pm, Mathematical Institute, Oxford OX2 6GG
Please email @email to register to attend in person.
The lecture will be broadcast on the Oxford Mathematics YouTube Channel on Wednesday 27 May at 5-6 pm and any time after (no need to register for the online version).
The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
