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, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, 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 Professorship of Astronomy) by Sir Henry Savile, a mathematician and classical scholar who was ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. Her fields of specialisation are algebraic and symplectic geometry.

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 collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. She took a

D.Phil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

at Oxford in 1984, with the dissertation title ''The Cohomology of Quotients in Symplectic and Algebraic Geometry'', 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 th ...

Research

Kirwan's research interests include moduli spaces in algebraic geometry,

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 clas ...

(GIT), and in the link between GIT and

moment map In mathematics, specifically in symplectic geometry, the momentum map (or, by false etymology, moment map) is a tool associated with a Hamiltonian action of a Lie group on a symplectic manifold, used to construct conserved quantities for the ac ...

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

topological In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ...

properties. She introduced the Kirwan map. From 1983 to 1985 she held a junior fellowship at Harvard. From 1983 to 1986 she held a Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, before becoming a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.Academia Europaea member profile
retrieved 22 June 2014. She is an honorary fellow of

Clare College, Cambridge 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 refound ...

and also at Magdalen College. In 1996, she was awarded the Title of Distinction of Professor of Mathematics. From 2004 to 2006 she was president of the London Mathematical Society, 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 moduli spaces 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 ...

s. In 2017, she was elected

, becoming the first woman to hold the post. While this entailed a move to New College, Oxford she was elected an emeritus fellow at Balliol. She was the convenor of the 2008–9 meeting of

European Women in Mathematics European Women in Mathematics (EWM) is an international association of women working in the field of mathematics in Europe. The association participates in political and strategic work to promote the role of women in mathematics and offers its mem ...

and deputy convenor of the following meeting in 2010–11.

Prizes, awards and scholarships

* London Mathematical Society

Whitehead Prize The Whitehead Prize is awarded yearly by the London Mathematical Society to multiple mathematicians working in the United Kingdom who are at an early stage of their career. The prize is named in memory of homotopy theory pioneer J. H. C. Whiteh ...

, 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, London Mathematical Society, 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 Europea ...

* Chairman of the

United Kingdom Mathematics Trust The United Kingdom Mathematics Trust (UKMT) is a charity founded in 1996 to help with the education of children in mathematics within the UK. History The national mathematics competitions existed prior to the formation of the UKMT, but t ...

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

of The Royal Society, 2021 * Honorary degree, University of York, 2020 * Honorary degree,

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

, 2022 Kirwan served on the medal selection committee for the awarding of the Fields medal to Dr. Mirzakhani.

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 women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians