James Maynard is a pure mathematician who works in number theory. His research focuses on analytic number theory, particularly the distribution of prime numbers and Diophantine approximation. He is best known for his work showing the existence of unusually small gaps between primes and the existence of unusually large gaps between primes.

He has won numerous mathematical awards, including the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize in 2014, the EMS Prize in 2016, the Cole Prize in 2020 and the Fields Medal in 2022.

Maynard was an undergraduate at Queens' College, Cambridge and completed a DPhil at Balliol College, Oxford under the supervision of Roger Heath-Brown. He was a CRM-ISM fellow at the University of Montreal, a Junior research fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford and a Clay Research fellow. He is now a professor of number theory at the University of Oxford.