Mathematics for the modern economy

Professor Alexander Halliday FRS, Vice President (Physical Secretary), the Royal Society

Alex Halliday, Physical Secretary and Vice-President of the Royal Society has been Professor of Geochemistry at Oxford University since October 2004. Before going to Oxford, he spent twelve years as a professor at the University of Michigan and then six years in Switzerland, where he was Head of the Department of Earth Sciences at the ETH in Zürich.  His research involves the use of isotopic methods to study Earth and planetary processes.

An enthusiast for technological innovation, most of Halliday's recent research is in developing and using new mass spectrometry techniques to shed light on the origin and early development of the solar system and recent Earth processes, such as continental erosion and climate. However, he has also been engaged in other studies, such as the mechanisms of volcanic eruptions, and the formation of mineral and hydrocarbon deposits.

Halliday's scientific accomplishments have been recognised with awards including the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society, the Bowen Award and Hess Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the Urey Medal of the European Association of Geochemistry and the Oxburgh Medal of Institute of Measurement and Control. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2000 and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2015.

Professor Mason Porter, UCLA

Mason Porter was born in Los Angeles, USA. He received a Bachelors degree in applied mathematics from Caltech in 1998 and a Ph.D. from the Center for Applied Mathematics at Cornell University in 2002. After holding postdoctoral positions at Georgia Tech, MSRI, and Caltech, Porter joined the faculty of the Mathematical Institute (and Somerville College) at the University of Oxford in 2007. He was named Professor of Nonlinear and Complex Systems in 2014. In 2016, he moved to the faculty of the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. 

Porter's research is in networks, complex systems, nonlinear systems, and their applications. His awards include the Erdös–Rényi prize in network science (2014), a Whitehead Prize (London Mathematical Society, 2015), and the Young Scientist Award for Socio- and Econophysics (German Physical Society, 2016).

Chris Brooks, Head of Science, dunnhumby

Chris Brooks is a Head of Science at dunnhumby, with a focus on technology to accelerate data science techniques.  dunnhumby’s global science teams work on price and promotions, personal recommendation, simulation, prediction and analytical computer sciences, in a retail context.  Chris joined dunnhumby in 2002 and has had a number of roles including data science, computer science, insight, architecture and data management.  Prior to joining dunnhumby, Chris worked at British Airways as an Operational Research analyst.  Chris has a Maths degree from the University of Cambridge and a Masters in Operational Research from the University of Birmingham.

Professor Hyungju Park, President, National Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Korea

Hyungju Park was born in Buyeo, Korea, and received his BS in physics at Seoul National University in 1986, and then received his Ph.D. at the University of California, in Berkeley in 1995. He studied algebraic geometry at the graduate school, gradually moving to computational aspect of algebraic geometry and applications to signal processing. He was a professor of computational sciences at Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS), and then a professor of mathematics at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH).  Hyungju Park is currently the president of the National Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Korea and a distinguished professor of mathematics at Ajou University. He served as the chairman of Organizing Committee of International Congress of Mathematics (ICM) 2014 in Seoul, and is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union.

Dr Helen Haworth

Helen has 15 years of experience in the finance industry, spanning asset management and investment banking. She has broad experience across multiple fixed income asset classes, with particular expertise in credit and interest rates, and has worked in four countries on four continents. Most recently, Helen was a Managing Director in the Global Markets Division of Credit Suisse in London, running the Global Interest Rate Strategy team. In this role, she and her team were responsible for publishing views on the direction of global interest rates for the firm’s clients.

Helen has a DPhil in financial mathematics from the University of Oxford modelling credit contagion within baskets of financial derivatives, an MMath from the University of Oxford and is a CFA Charterholder. She is currently taking some time out from the corporate world to look after her two young children and is helping build a small business in the sports and leisure industry.

Dr Vicki Saward

Vicki is responsible for driving the operational performance of BAE System's Submarine business in Barrow-in-Furness as the shipyard embarks on the delivery of the next generation nuclear deterrent. She is responsible for the design and build of two classes of submarine and a workforce of more than 5000 people spanning engineering, project management, supply chain and operations.

Prior to joining Submarines, Vicki worked for BAE Systems Applied Intelligence (formerly Detica) where she specialised in enabling organisations to exploit information and intelligence more effectively. Vicki spent most of her early career supporting the UK’s Law Enforcement community implement technology-enabled change with a specific focus on organised crime, tax and benefits fraud and counter-terrorism.  Vicki has held various Director level roles at BAE Systems spanning P&L management, client engagement and strategic new ventures. 

Vicki gained a D. Phil. from the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Maths (OCIAM) with a Thesis on the applications of diffraction theory to stealth technology. Vicki is married with two children and in her spare time enjoys gardening and spending time outdoors with her family.

Mayesta Ewer, Head of Analytics, NATS

Professor Andrew Randewich, AWE plc, UK

After completing a PhD in plasma physics, Andrew joined AWE in 1997 in the High Altitude Nuclear Effects Team where he developed a novel capability to model Nuclear Induced Van Allen Belts, worked on Electromagnetic Pulse phenomenology, and won the Discovery Award for Early Career Scientific Innovation. Andrew later worked on thermonuclear burn modelling in support of Inertial Confinement Fusion and as a Team Leader in the Computational Physics Group. Since then, Andrew managed the Physics Certification programme and later led the High Performance Computing Group where he was involved in the procurement and installation of some of the largest computers in the UK. After acting as Head of Design Physics, Andrew was appointed Head of Plasma Physics in 2011. The Department’s main role is using high power lasers to underwrite high energy density physics simulations. Andrew was Asset Manager for the ORION laser, one of the largest science capital investments in the UK and managed several other science facilities. Also in 2011, Andrew became Head of Profession for Physics and in 2013 moved to be AWE Chief Scientist in which role he assured AWE Science and Capability and led the company’s Strategic External Outreach. He is now Head of Physics comprising 550 staff. Andrew was appointed as a visiting Professor at Imperial College, London in 2012, and is a Chartered Physicist, a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. Andrew was part of the 2015 Review of the US NNSA Inertial Confinement Fusion and High Energy Density Science Review in 2015 and sits on the NIF Management Advisory Committee and NNSA’s 2020 ICF, Ignition and High Yield Red Team Review Panel.

Dr Malcolm Skingle CBE, GSK

Malcolm has BSc in Pharmacology/Biochemistry and a PhD in Neuropharmacology. He has gained a wide breadth of experience in the management of research activities and has more than 60 publications including articles on the interface between industry and academia. For more than two decades he has managed Academic Liaison at GSK managing staff in the UK and US. His role involves close liaison with several groups outside the company e.g. Government departments, research and funding councils, small biotechnology companies and other science-driven organisations. He sits on many external bodies and several UK university department advisory groups.  He also chairs several groups including the Diamond (Synchotron) Industrial Advisory Board, the Science Industry Partnership addressing skill needs for scientists in England and the ABPI group working on academic liaison.

Malcolm was awarded a CBE in the 2009 Queen’s Birthday Honours List in recognition of his contribution to the pharmaceutical industry as well as an Honorary Professorship from the College of Medical and Dental Sciences at the University of Birmingham and honorary degrees from the Universities of Dundee and Hertfordshire.

Dr Mark Taylor, Global Strategy & Research Director, Dyson

Dr Steve Otto, Director – Equipment Standards, The R&A

Dr Otto is a mathematician, formerly of The University of Birmingham, who has headed the R&A's Research and Testing work since 2004. He has written two books and over fifty scientific articles, together with supervising 20 PhD projects over half of which have concerned golf. His current role includes the management of numerous research projects, developing the overall understanding of the physics of golf to ensure that the Rules of Golf remain pertinent to the way the game is played today. This is coupled with reviewing equipment to ensure that it meets the current Rules of Golf. As part of understanding the issues facing the game today, Dr Otto and his team engages in the collection of data from attitudinal information from golfers to laboratory measurements to measurements of golfers of all levels.

Professor Mark Girolami, Imperial College

Mark Girolami FRSE is Chair of Statistics in the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London and Associated Professor in the Department of Computing at Imperial College. He spent the first ten years of his career as an engineer with IBM. He is an EPSRC Established Career Research Fellow - Mathematics - (2012-2018), and previously an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow - ICT - (2007-2012). In 2011 he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. Previous research has generated patents and technologies for fraud detection in both automated banking and telecoms. Based on this research, currency validation products are now being shipped with latest generation Cash Machines from National Cash Registers. In the last quarter of 2015, he worked on developing probabilistic methods for City specific forecasting of product demand for Amazon Global Forecasting Division in Seattle.

Dr Poul Hjorth, Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics, Technical University of Denmark

M.Sc. (Mathematics), University of Copenhagen 1982; Ph.D.(Mathematical Physics) University of California 1988. Research fellow at Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California San Diego 1988-1989. Associate professor of Mathematics at Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark (DTU) since 1994. Visiting Professor at The Maresk McKinney Institut for Production Technology, 2004. DTU Teaching Award, 2010. Editor of the Danish Mathematical Society Newsletter MATilde. Lecturer at the Danish Open University in Copenhagen. Organiser and co-organiser of Danish Study Groups with Industry. Executive Director for the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry (ECMI).

Dr Chris Farmer, Research Fellow, Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

With a first degree in pure mathematics and theoretical physics and a theoretical physics PhD, Chris Farmer joined the UKAEA in 1976 working on nuclear safety and on oil recovery. In 1991 he became a software developer with Schlumberger, developing simulation and geological modelling software for the oil industry. From 2002-2006 he was a Royal Society Industry Fellow. For two years he was a leader of the Schlumberger mathematics community of several hundred mathematicians. Since 2009 he has been a research fellow at the Oxford Mathematical Institute working in the area of inverse problems, uncertainty and optimal decision-making.

Dr Lincoln Wallen, CEO, DWA NOVA LLC

Lincoln Wallen serves as Chief Technology Officer for DreamWorks Animation and is responsible for providing strategic technology vision and leadership for the company. Wallen is also Chief Executive Officer of DreamWorks Animation’s newly formed technology company, NOVA, bringing DreamWorks cloud-based visual imaging platform to companies designing and retailing consumer products.

Lincoln joined DreamWorks Animation in 2008 as Head of Research and Development, where he oversaw the strategic vision, creation and deployment of the studio’s CG production platform and software tools. Wallen is a recipient of InfoWorld’s 2012 “Technology Leadership Award,” the prestigious annual award that honors senior executives who have demonstrated creative, effective leadership in inventing, managing, or deploying technology within their organizations or in the IT community. Under his leadership, DreamWorks Animation was named to the 50 Most Innovative Companies list in MIT’s Technology Review.

Prior to joining DreamWorks Animation, Wallen was Chief Technology Officer for Online and Mobile Services at Electronic Arts where he led the company’s approach to publishing and videogame development for cell phones. Prior to EA, Lincoln served as Vice President at Criterion Software, and Chief Technology Officer for the physics startup MathEngine. 

Before joining the entertainment industry, Wallen enjoyed a distinguished career as a Professor at Oxford University, was the first Director for the multidisciplinary Smith Institute for Industrial Mathematics and Systems Engineering. He holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Durham, United Kingdom and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence as well as an honorary Doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Dr Marianna Braza, Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse

Marianna Braza graduated from the Institut National Polytechniqe d’Athènes, in 1977, received her Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse (INPT) in 1981 and her Doctorat d’Etat-ès-Sciences in 1986. She was appointed as Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), at the Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (IMFT) in 2001, after holding research position of Chargée de Recherche for four years at CNRS-IMFT, where she developed her research in the group Transferts en Ecoulements Laminaires et Turbulents.  

Her current responsibilities involve leadership of the research theme "Fluid-Structure interaction under Turbulent flows'' in the group EMT2, Ecoulements Monophasiques, transitionnels et Turbulents of IMFT, including several permanent and invited faculty members, doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows. Her research interests are in flow physics and modeling of turbulent aerodynamic flows, fluid-structure interaction and in particular Morphing of aerostructures for novel designs. She has received three scientific awards (CRAY-Research, France, 1987); (Académie des Sciences et de Belles Lettres de Toulouse, 1988); (IBM - Calcul Numérique Intensif, 1991) and was involved in the best student’s Aerodays meeting award by the European Commission, in 2011 through her students' best study. Currently, she is the coordinator of several working groups in Federative European Research Programmes of the 6th and 7th Framework (FP7) in areas related to aeronautics, fluid-structure interactions and unsteady flow physics involving shock waves and laminarity of new generation of wings. She has a leadership in the research theme of morphing in IMFT and she coordinates three national aeronautics research programs on electroactive morphing for smart wing design. She is the leader of the platform “Smart Morphing Center”, and has a strong collaboration with MIT (Department of Mechanical Engineering) in this topic. In parallel, inspired from turbulence and thermodynamics, she studies modelling for modern economy.

Dr Ruth McKernan CBE FMedSci, Chief Executive, Innovate UK

Ruth McKernan joined Innovate UK as Chief Executive in May 2015. Ruth has 25 years of research and commercial experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including heading up research units in the UK and the US.  She is a member of the Science, Industry and Translation Committee of the Royal Society, a member of Cancer Research UK and previously a Council Member for the Medical Research Council. Ruth has held previous roles as Senior Vice President, Pfizer and Head of the Merck Neuroscience Research Centre.

Ruth has a BSc in Pharmacology and Biochemistry and a PhD in Molecular Neuroscience from King’s College, London and spent two years in San Diego on a Fulbright Scholarship.  She has more than 120 scientific papers and 15 patents.  

Her hobbies include science writing; she won a Science Writer of the Year award for articles in the Independent and published her first book ‘Billy’s Halo’ in 2005. Ruth was awarded a CBE in 2013 for services to Business, Innovation and Skills.

Professor Philip Bond FREng

Council for Science and Technology

Philip studied physics, theoretical physics, applied mathematics, finance and pure mathematics before working as a professional trader and hedge fund manager. He then started a consultancy specialising in problem solving across a wide range of activities including F1, aerospace, government and Olympic sports. He also heads research and innovation for the GB Olympic ski and snowboard teams at GB Snowsport.

Philip sits on the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology (CST) and chaired its subcommittee on artificial intelligence and robotics that led to subsequent new funding of over a billion pounds into those sectors. He also chaired the Era of Mathematics – An Independent Review of Knowledge Exchange in the Mathematical Sciences which recommended substantial increases in funding and new infrastructure to support the mathematical sciences and expand their range of impact. He is currently chairing subcommittee projects on UK productivity, and learning.

He is a fellow in the Department of Mathematics at Oxford, holds visiting professorships in engineering mathematics and computer science at the University of Bristol, and is Professor of Creativity and Innovation at the University of Manchester. He has twice held the Guinness world record for the memorisation of the number pi.