Graeme Segal is a mathematician who has worked in algebraic topology, global analysis, noncommutative geometry, quantum field theory, and string theory. His main motivation has always been the attempt to understand the role of geometry in fundamental physics, and in recent times, more specifically, how the concept of space–time can emerge from a quantum picture of the world.

Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1982, Graeme is now an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He was President of the London Mathematical Society from 2011 to 2013 and was awarded its Polya Prize in 1991. In 2010, he received the Royal Society’s Sylvester Medal for mathematical research.