Latest news

Rachel Riley, Oriel 2004, is to fill the role vacated by Carol Vordermann on the popular quiz show Countdown.

See the Times Online article for more details.

As some people may be aware there has been a serious electrical problem for over a year affecting the power supply to buildings on St Giles.

Monday 24th saw the worst power failure yet and resulted in serious disruption to the departmental IT systems.

Since the problem in the street seemed to be unclear, and any attempt at resolution seemed slow, in Spring the department asked for electrical works to be done in the St Giles building that would attempt to resolve internal issues and thus reduce the disruptions.

There have been serious delays with this work. To date the first phase of the work to provide a dedicated distribution board to the server room has been completed. The second phase will redistribute the existing circuits in the room onto this new board. The final phase of the works will then rebalance the three phases within the St Giles building which are currently serious unbalanced.

Professor Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, has been appointed to the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science. The Charles Simonyi Professorship was established in 1995 and is held jointly between the Department for Continuing Education and the post-holder’s disciplinary department in the University. The new appointment will take effect from 1 December 2008.

Further information available

Oxford Mathematicians in the City is a new network that aims to bring together Oxford alumni who share a mathematics education and a professional interest in the field of finance and business. We hope that this inaugural event on Tuesday 7th October 2008 will lead to further and regular networking events and a greater sense of unity amongst our alumni.

For further information see the event poster

Professor Marcus du Sautoy has a new four part TV series, The Story of Maths, starting at 9pm (this time is provisional) on Monday 6 October on BBC4.

Marcus has travelled around the world, to take viewers through a 30,000 year history of maths.

We are pleased to announce the following awards:

Lifetime Achievement Awards go to Dr David Acheson and Dr Peter Neumann O.B.E.

A New Appointee Award goes to Prof Tom Witelski.

Teaching Development Awards go to Dr Jan Grabowski, Prof Roger Heath-Brown, Prof Alison Etheridge, Prof Victor Flynn, and Dr Anne Henke

Congratulations to Michael Collins, John Lennox, and John Ockendon on the conferment of the title of Professor of Mathematics, and to Andrew Dancer and Xenia de la Ossa on the conferment of the title Reader in Mathematics.

Terry Lyons is to present an IMS Medallion Lecture at the 2010 SPA meeting in Osaka, Japan.

Each year eight Medallion Lecturers are chosen across all areas of statistics and probability by the IMS Committee on Special Lectures. The Medallion nomination is an honour and an acknowledgement of a significant research contribution to one or more areas of research.

Congratulations to Jim Murray (formerly of this department) on the award of the Bakerian Prize Lecture by the Royal Society

The Royal Society has awarded Roger Penrose the Copley medal, the world's oldest prize for scientific achievement for his exceptional contributions to geometry and mathematical physics.

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