As of 2019, a generous £250,000 donation from the Turner-Kirk Charitable Trust has allowed the establishment of the Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowships scheme. This fellowship provides funding for one senior mathematician per programme in the style of the existing Rothschild Distinguished Visiting Fellowships. These field-leading figures are chosen from under-represented groups within higher mathematical research. As a consequence they will primarily be senior women mathematicians. It is the Institute’s hope that this prestigious fellowship will help create and promote influential new role models within the field, and address the historical gender imbalance that persists within the science.

  • INTERVIEW: Dr Ewan Kirk‘s thoughts on on research, philanthropy and the the foundation of the Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowships scheme
  • INTERVIEW: Professor Claudia Sagastizabal on renewable energy, the “science of betterment” and punting in circles
  • INTERVIEW: Professor Donatella Marini on virtual element methods, talented women and collaborative working
  • LIVING PROOF PODCAST #7: Professor Irene Fonseca discusses the power of academic interactions, the obligations placed upon high-achieving females, and a love of painting
  • LIVING PROOF PODCAST #9: Professor Svitlana Mayboroda discusses the draw of harmonic analysis and a love of mathematics for its own sake
  • LIVING PROOF PODCAST #18: Associate Professor Lesley Ward discusses complex analysis, the value of peer support and “the ability to develop agency”

Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellows

2024

Professor Cristina Marchetti University of California, Santa Barbara Anti-diffusive dynamics: from sub-cellular to astrophysical scales
Professor Barbara Fantechi SISSA New equivariant methods in algebraic and differential geometry

2023

Professor Agnes Maurel ESPCI ParisTech Mathematical theory and applications of multiple wave scattering
Professor Misha Elena Kilmer Tufts University Rich and Nonlinear Tomography – a multidisciplinary approach
Professor Claudia Schillings Freie Universität Berlin The mathematical and statistical foundation of future data-driven engineering
Professor Apala Majumdar University of Strathclyde Uncertainty quantification and stochastic modelling of materials
Professor Andrea Liu University of Pennsylvania New statistical physics in living matter: non equilibrium states under adaptive control
Professor Ruth Baker University of Oxford Mathematics of movement: an inter-disciplinary approach to mutual challenges in animal ecology and cell biology

2022

Professor Alba Grassi CERN – European Organisation for Nuclear Research Applicable resurgent asymptotics: towards a universal theory
Professor Sylvie Benzoni-Gavage Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 Dispersive hydrodynamics: mathematics, simulation and experiments, with applications in nonlinear waves
Professor Catherine Constable University of California, San Diego Frontiers in dynamo theory: from the Earth to the stars
Professor Luisa Beghin University of Rome La Sapienza Fractional differential equations
Professor Rama Govindarajan International Centre for Theoretical Sciences Mathematical aspects of turbulence: where do we stand?
Professor Irene M. Gamba University of Texas at Austin Frontiers in kinetic theory: connecting microscopic to macroscopic scales
Professor Parimala Raman Emory University K-theory, algebraic cycles and motivic homotopy theory
Professor Anne Taormina Durham University New connections in number theory and physics

2021

Professor Gordana Todorov Northeastern Cluster algebras and representation theory
Professor Rebecca Willett Chicago Mathematics of deep learning

2020

Professor Claire Voisin Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu K-theory, algebraic cycles and motivic homotopy theory
Professor Cheryl Praeger University of Western Australia Groups, representations and applications: new perspectives

2019

Professor Irene Fonseca Carnegie Mellon University The mathematical design of new materials
Professor Donatella Marini Università degli Studi di Pavia Geometry, compatibility and structure preservation in computational differential equations
Professor Svitlana Mayboroda University of Minnesota Approximation, sampling and compression in data science
Professor Claudia Sagastizabal Universidade Estadual de Campinas The mathematics of energy systems
Professor Lesley Ward University of South Australia Complex analysis: techniques, applications and computations

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