alt Hacker NewsShe is great at popularity regarding mathematics, but her achievements do not seem to be primarily within hardcore mathematical research, more within popularity and communication.
> She is the first Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge,
I am not sure that she is a "math professor", but that she is a "professor of the public understanding of mathematics". The latter seems softer.
Replies
tclancy • today at 1:39 PM
Signed up just to post that? You’ll fit in well here.
She was a professor in the mathematics of cities (applied spatial mathematics) before that — in her early thirties.
She is an expert in applied mathematics (president of the applicable UK institute, actually) and this is absolutely of a piece with that; it's not some wishy-washy thing that she does.
Public understanding of science has proved to be a valuable field, and I think this will be important. Her Oxford opposite number, arguably, is Marcus du Sautoy, who has the Public Understanding of Science professorship that was originally created for Dawkins.