Marston Donald Edward Conder (born 9 September 1955) is a New Zealand mathematician, a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at

Auckland University The University of Auckland (; Māori language, Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public university, public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the Unive ...

,Staff directory listing entry
Auckland U. Mathematics, retrieved 22 January 2013. and the former co-director of the New Zealand Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. His main research interests are in

combinatorial group theory In mathematics, combinatorial group theory is the theory of free groups, and the concept of a presentation of a group by generators and relations. It is much used in geometric topology, the fundamental group of a simplicial complex having in a na ...

graph theory In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of ''graph (discrete mathematics), graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of ''Vertex (graph ...

, and their connections with each other.

Education and career

Conder was born in

Hamilton, New Zealand Hamilton (, ) is an inland city in the North Island of New Zealand. Located on the banks of the Waikato River, it is the seat and most populous city of the Waikato, Waikato region. With a territorial population of , it is the country's List of c ...

, and studied at Matamata College.Centrefold: Marston Conder
NZMS Newsletter 70, August 1997, retrieved 22 January 2013. He earned a master's degree in social science from

Waikato University The University of Waikato (), established in 1964, is a public research university located in Hamilton, New Zealand. An additional campus is located in Tauranga. The university performs research in numerous disciplines such as education, socia ...

in 1977, and a doctorate from

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a 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 second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in 1980 under the supervision of

Graham Higman Graham Higman FRS (19 January 1917 – 8 April 2008) was a prominent English mathematician known for his contributions to group theory. Biography Higman was born in Louth, Lincolnshire, and attended Sutton High School, Plymouth, winning ...

.RSNZ member profile
retrieved 22 January 2013. He served as president of the New Zealand Mathematical Society from 1993 to 1995, and as president of the Academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand from 2006 to 2008. In 2011 he was selected as the inaugural Maclaurin Lecturer, as part of a reciprocal exchange between the New Zealand Mathematical Society and 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, ...

Recognition

Conder is a fellow of the New Zealand Mathematical Society and of the

Royal Society Te Apārangi The Royal Society Te Apārangi (in full, Royal Society of New Zealand) is a not-for-profit body in New Zealand providing funding and policy advice in the fields of sciences and the humanities. These fundings (i.e., Marsden grants and research fe ...

, and in 2012 became a fellow of the

. He was named as a Distinguished Alumnus of Waikato University for 2013. In 2011 he was awarded a James Cook Research Fellowship for research on symmetry of discrete structures. In March 2021 it was announced that Conder has been awarded the 2020 Euler Medal by the

Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) is an international scientific organization formed in 1990 to increase the visibility and influence of the Combinatorics, combinatorial community. In pursuit of this goal, the ICA sponsors ...

for his "many distinguished contributions to combinatorics over the last 40 years." In 2014 the Royal Society Te Apārangi awarded Conder the Hector Medal, and in 2018 the Jones Medal, named after

Vaughan Jones Sir Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones (31 December 19526 September 2020) was a New Zealand mathematician known for his work on von Neumann algebras and knot polynomials. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1990. Early life Jones was born in Gisbo ...

, "for his internationally renowned research on symmetry and chirality in discrete structures, and his exemplary leadership and service in the New Zealand mathematical sciences community". In the 2020 Birthday Honours, he was appointed an Officer of the

New Zealand Order of Merit The New Zealand Order of Merit () is an order of merit in the New Zealand royal honours system. It was established by royal warrant (document), royal warrant on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Monarchy of New Zealand, Queen of New Zealand, "for th ...

(ONZM) for services to mathematics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conder, Marston 1955 births Living people Group theorists Graph theorists Fellows of the American Mathematical Society University of Waikato alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford Academic staff of the University of Auckland 20th-century New Zealand mathematicians 21st-century New Zealand mathematicians Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand James Cook Research Fellows People educated at Matamata College