Dame Frances Clare Kirwan, (born 21 August 1959) is a British

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, currently

Savilian Professor of Geometry The position of Savilian Professor of Geometry was established at the University of Oxford in 1619. It was founded (at the same time as the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Savilian Professorship of Astronomy) by Henry Savile (Bible translator), ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. Her fields of specialisation are algebraic and

symplectic geometry Symplectic geometry is a branch of differential geometry and differential topology that studies symplectic manifolds; that is, differentiable manifolds equipped with a closed, nondegenerate 2-form. Symplectic geometry has its origins in the ...

Education

Kirwan was educated at Oxford High School, and studied maths as an undergraduate at

Clare College Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refounded ...

in the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. She took a D.Phil at Oxford in 1984, with the dissertation title ''The Cohomology of Quotients in Symplectic and

Algebraic Geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

'', which was supervised by

Michael Atiyah Sir Michael Francis Atiyah (; 22 April 1929 – 11 January 2019) was a British-Lebanese mathematician specialising in geometry. His contributions include the Atiyah–Singer index theorem and co-founding topological K-theory. He was awarded the ...

Research

Kirwan's research interests include

moduli space In mathematics, in particular algebraic geometry, a moduli space is a geometric space (usually a scheme (mathematics), scheme or an algebraic stack) whose points represent algebro-geometric objects of some fixed kind, or isomorphism classes of suc ...

s in

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

geometric invariant theory In mathematics, geometric invariant theory (or GIT) is a method for constructing quotients by group actions in algebraic geometry, used to construct moduli spaces. It was developed by David Mumford in 1965, using ideas from the paper in class ...

(GIT), and in the link between GIT and moment maps in

. Her work endeavours to understand the structure of geometric objects by investigation of their algebraic and

topological Topology (from the Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, wit ...

properties. She introduced the Kirwan map. From 1983 to 1985 she held a junior fellowship at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

. From 1983 to 1986 she held a Fellowship at

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

, before becoming a Fellow of

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

.Academia Europaea member profile
retrieved 22 June 2014. She is an honorary fellow of

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the Unive ...

and also at Magdalen College. In 1996, she was awarded the

Title of Distinction The University of Oxford introduced Titles of Distinction for senior academics in the 1990s. These are not established chairs, which are posts funded by endowment for academics with a distinguished career in British and European universities. Howeve ...

of Professor of Mathematics. From 2004 to 2006 she was president of the

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's Learned society, learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh ...

, the second-youngest president in the society's history and only the second woman to be president. In 2005, she received a five-year

EPSRC The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to univers ...

Senior Research Fellowship, to support her research on the

s of complex

algebraic curve In mathematics, an affine algebraic plane curve is the zero set of a polynomial in two variables. A projective algebraic plane curve is the zero set in a projective plane of a homogeneous polynomial in three variables. An affine algebraic plane cu ...

s. In 2017, she was elected

, becoming the first woman to hold the post. While this entailed a move to

New College, Oxford New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first col ...

she was elected an emeritus fellow at Balliol. She was the convenor of the 2008–9 meeting of European Women in Mathematics and deputy convenor of the following meeting in 2010–11.

Prizes, awards and scholarships

* London Mathematical Society Whitehead Prize, 1989Dr Frances Kirwan awarded the Whitehead Prize
lms.ac.uk; accessed 9 May 2014. * Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, 2001 * President,

, 2003–2005 *

Senior Research Fellowship, 2005–2010, for her work in algebraic geometry * Fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

, 2012 * London Mathematical Society Senior Whitehead Prize, 2013 * DBE for services to mathematics, 2014 *Maths and Computing

Suffrage Science award The Suffrage Science award is a prize for women in science, engineering and computing founded in 2011, on the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS). There are three categories of awar ...

, 2016 * Member of

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

* Chairman of the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust *

Sylvester Medal The Sylvester Medal is a bronze medal awarded by the Royal Society for the encouragement of mathematical research, and accompanied by a £1,000 prize. It was named in honour of James Joseph Sylvester, the Savilian chair of geometry, Savilian Prof ...

of The Royal Society, 2021 * Honorary degree,

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

, 2020 * Honorary degree,

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

, 2022 * L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards (Laureate for Europe – Mathematics), 2023 Kirwan served on the medal-selection committee that awarded the

Fields medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of Mathematicians, International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place e ...

Maryam Mirzakhani Maryam Mirzakhani (, ; 12 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller space, Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic the ...

Publications

* * with Jonathan Woolf: *

References

External links

Profile at the University of Oxford Mathematical Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirwan, Frances 1959 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians Algebraic geometers British women mathematicians Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge Fellows of Clare College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Oxford Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of New College, Oxford Female fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Members of Academia Europaea Harvard Fellows People educated at Oxford High School, England Whitehead Prize winners British women academics Fellows of the Royal Society Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire 20th-century British women mathematicians 21st-century British women mathematicians L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureates