MATHSWORLDUK - Key Persons
Catherine Griffiths has a career in establishing and expanding research centres that span multiple disciplines. This has included developing the Kobler Unit for the Management of Technology at Imperial College, the Outsourcing Unit at London School of Economics, and the Birkbeck Institute for Data Analytics at Birkbeck London University. Her work across technology, the arts, data science, history and design, as well as building conservation, has facilitated this multi-disciplinary approach. She has been retained by business and government specifically to assist small and medium sized business, startups and spin out companies. In this capacity she has been part of the teams to write business plans and present successfully to secure multi-million pound investments for businesses development, technology application and expansion.
Holding both academic posts and post graduate supervisor roles, she also has experience of teaching and shaping leading edge research in areas as diverse as technology, railways, management strategy and data analytics.
Catherine represents Birkbeck's involvement in the newly founded Institute of Coding https://instituteofcoding.org/, is a Senior Editor for the Journal of Information Technology and its sister journal for teaching cases, JITTC . She is also a Trustee of the Association of Information Technology Trust.
Job Titles:
- Strategic Director, Wolfram Research
Having completed his BA, MSc and DPhil all in Mathematics at the University of Oxford, Kit became a junior research fellow at Christchurch College, Oxford. He is a mathematical biologist and was based in the Mathematics department at the university. He is now a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Bath. His academic interests include modelling the patterns on birds eggs, modelling cell migration in early embryogenesis and modelling pathogenicity in the trypanosome parasite which causes sleeping sickness.
He is also a keen populariser of mathematics. He has worked on a variety of outreach projects including Oxford University's mathematics outreach group M3 with professor Marcus Du Sautoy. He has opened regional science festivals, written popular maths articles for the Times and is currently the mathematical consultant on the maths/comedy fusion programme "Dara O'Briain's school of hard sums".
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Head of Research at G - Research
Christoph is the Head of Research at G-Research, a London-based quantitative finance firm and a significant employer of top mathematical talent in the UK. He joined the company after a brief but distinguished career in academic research in condensed matter physics, most recently as a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. Christoph received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1999 and has held postdoctoral positions at Cambridge and ETH Zurich. Originally from Hamburg, Christoph had a passion for mathematics from a young age and won a Silver Medal at the 1992 International Mathematical Olympiad as part of the German team. He now wants to pass on this passion, and to help convey the beauty and excitement of mathematics.
Jack has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge, a postgraduate diploma from Imperial College and a doctorate in Theoretical Physics from the University of Southampton.
His whole working life has been devoted to mathematics, at first teaching mathematics to both undergraduates and postgraduates at several universities. From 1981 to 1996 he headed the very large and successful mathematics team at Kingston College, before moving to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority as a member of their mathematics team, with a time as acting leader of the team. He worked very closely with Professor Sir Adrian Smith on his seminal report for the government on Post-14 Mathematics Education: Making Mathematics Count, published in 2004. He has led on qualifications and curriculum development both in this country and abroad. From 2008 until 2012 he was a member of the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (ACME) and was responsible for a number of major reports published by ACME. Since 2012 he has been an advisor to ACME as a member of the ACME Outer Circle. He also is a member of the Cambridge Assessment Consultative Forum for Mathematics.
Jack has had a long-standing desire to establish a Mathematics Discovery Centre in this country, and his classrooms when he was still teaching always had something of a feel of a mini gallery of mathematics. He feels that there is no national centre that puts mathematics at the forefront of man's intellectual and cultural heritage or stresses the power and importance of mathematics in the modern world, and that the creation of such a centre would be fun, stimulating and informative to groups of all ages, and therefore educational in the best sense of the word.
Job Titles:
- Director, Maths Inspiration
Ruth's interest in mathematics led her to complete an MMath and doctorate in mathematics at the University of Oxford. Her desire to enthuse others resulted in her taking a PGCE following which she taught 11-18 year olds. Her ambition to encourage more people into the mathematical sciences did not waiver and so she began work on the HEFCE funded More Maths Grads Project to pilot ideas to increase numbers entering this field by giving students, teachers and advisors a greater understanding of the subject and the career paths onto which it could lead. Nowadays she is the STEM coordinator and maths specialist working in outreach at the University of Leeds.
Job Titles:
- Head of Technology in Education Unit, Davidson Institute, Weizmann Institute of Science
Job Titles:
- Honorary President
- Trustee
As one of the founders of MathsWorldUK and as the previous long standing chair, Geoff was made Honorary President of the charity.
Biography - After a short period as a naval officer, Geoff spent 40 years in education, as a teacher and then a teacher trainer. For 24 years he was at the University of Leeds in the Centre for Studies in Science and Mathematics Education, as director of teacher training for 6 years and 2 years as Dean of the Faculty of Education. After retirement from Leeds he spent 2 years as a professor at the new University of Malaysia, Sarawak.
Between 1989 and 1992 he was co-director of the PopMaths Roadshow with Professor David Crighton of the University of Cambridge. The PopMaths Roadshow was a major inter-active exhibition of mathematics which toured 24 cities in the UK and Ireland. It was estimated that over a quarter of a million people visited at one or other of the venues. Geoff has also been secretary of the Joint Mathematical Council of the United Kingdom and chairman of the Nuffield Foundation committee on the popularisation of mathematics. He has worked on many aspects of mathematical education and on education projects in overseas countries.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Director of External Relations at the Grammar School
Helen is the Director of External Relations at The Grammar School at Leeds. Helen is passionate about the importance of education, and she is committed to the school playing its part in making Leeds one of the best cities in the UK for children and young people. The school works with organisations across the city to provide enrichment opportunities, as well as spending more than £1m pa on means-tested bursaries to enable academically talented pupils attend the school. Whilst her academic background is humanities rather than STEM, she feels strongly that numeracy is as important as literacy in improving social mobility.
After teaching mathematics in FE in London and the USA, and becoming an Advisor for Mathematics in FE across Inner London, Huw was an inspector for continuing education in Kent and was the founding Chair of NANAMIC - the National Association for Numeracy and Mathematics in Colleges, from 1992 to 1999.
He is a Chartered Mathematician and a Member of the IMA. He was a member of the steering committee of the Nuffield project, chaired by Hugh Neill, to develop a new Mathematics A level in the late 80s and was a member of the steering group of the project on Mathematical Skills in the Workplace for the Science, Technology and Mathematics Council in 2000/02. In 2008 he completed a report, with Jack Abramsky, for ACME on Mathematics in FE Colleges in England, and 2010/11 was the lead consultant on the ACME Mathematical Needs project, which reported on maths in the workplace and in HE.
After working as a freelance consultant in vocational education he has returned to teaching, including teaching students from Sweden and from Turkey as well as mature students on Access to HE courses.
Jason completed his MMath at the University of Warwick. He then worked as a Maths Teacher, training with TeachFirst and then later as a Senior Educator at MoMath, in Manhattan. He is also a qualified chartered ICAEW accountant and has spent time as a Senior Associate Accountant at PWC learning about effective organisational management.
He has a passion for mathematical magic and wrote a short book entitled "Maths Made Magic", collaborating with colleagues from Queen Mary College, London; this is available for free online. He wrote two shows entitled "The Maths Magic Show" which he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe on two consecutive years. He tours his shows around UK schools. He has appeared several times on YouTube's "Numberphile" channel discussing various mathematical magic tricks.
Job Titles:
- Editor
- Trustee
- Head of Mathematics Solutions at Cambridge Partnership for Education
Lynne is currently Head of Mathematics Solutions at Cambridge Partnership for Education at the University of Cambridge. Previous project leadership roles include Director of Cambridge Mathematics, Director of NRICH and PI on the Government funded A-level project Underground Mathematics, and before that Principal Lecturer and PGCE course leader at two leading UK Universities, Headteacher of a small primary school and a secondary maths teacher.
Lynne was a member of ACME from 2009 to 2013 and again from 2017 to 2020, and sits on the Royal Society Mathematical Futures Board and the Partnership Grants Panel. She is active in various mathematics education communities including as chair of governors of the Cambridge Maths School and trustee of National Numeracy and she chairs the Education workstream for the proto-Academy for the Mathematical Sciences. She was President of the Mathematical Association in 2014/5 and Executive Chair of ISDDE. She is a fellow of the IMA and ISDDE.
Lynne is the author or editor of many books and articles and is well known as an international conference speaker and professional development lead. In 2022 she was awarded an OBE for services to education.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Founder and Director of Two DeepTech
Mark is the founder and Director of two DeepTech startups focussed on addressing sustainability challenges in medicine and computing through the use of novel science and technology.
Mark has a degree in modern languages from Oxford and is a Daiwa Scholar. He firmly believes that maths is a fundamental skill that can be accessible to everyone and that, like everything, one's early experiences and encouragement paves the way to being able to enjoy and exploit it fully in later life.
Roger spent most of his adult life working as a physician and endocrinologist, working in Birmingham, St Bartholomew's Hospital, London and Liverpool before taking up a consultant post at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton. Alongside his medical interests he has had a lifelong enthusiasm for mathematics as a hobby and intellectual pursuit. After retirement in 2010 he undertook several courses of study with the Open University, leading to the award of a Certificate in Mathematics in 2011. His reading of the works of Martin Gardner led to a long-lasting interest in recreational mathematics. Since 2012 he has taught mathematics on a voluntary basis to groups of year 6 primary school children who were thought likely to benefit from enrichment activities. In this teaching he has used all manner of games, puzzles and practical activities drawn from a wide variety of sources.
Roger enjoys building mathematical models, mainly polyhedra, and he uses them extensively in his teaching.
Sam graduated from the University of Warwick with a BSc in Maths, Operations, Research, Statistics and Economics. He joined the ASDA Graduate Scheme in 2005, where he trained as an IT project manager. Sam has been an Operations Manager for Mosaic Church in Leeds, where he was responsible for managing Finances, HR, and Contracts. He was also one of the founding directors of The Barn Coffee Shop, Meanwood - a successful social enterprise start-up. Sam is the co-founder and director of ExpenesePlus, which is a cloud-based fund accounting package that enables churches and charities to streamline their financial process.
Job Titles:
- Vice - Chancellor
- Vice - Chancellor Education at Newcastle University
Professor Tom Ward - Trustee
Deputy Chair of the Charity Trustees
Professor Tom Ward is a mathematician and Pro Vice-Chancellor Education at ...
Professor Tom Ward is a mathematician and Pro Vice-Chancellor Education at Newcastle University. He is responsible for the educational strategy for the University. Tom's research is in ergodic theory and its relation to number theory.