Oxford Mathematician Frances Kirwan has been awarded the Sylvester Medal 2021 "for her research on quotients in algebraic geometry, including links with symplectic geometry and topology, which has had many applications."

One of the main themes of geometry in recent years has been the appearance of unexpected dualities between different geometric spaces arising from ideas in mathematical physics. One famous such example is mirror symmetry. Another kind of duality, which I am currently investigating with collaborators from Oxford and Imperial College, is symplectic duality.

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