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

Auckland University , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

,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 nat ...

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conn ...

, and their connections with each other.

Education and career

Conder was born in

Hamilton, New Zealand Hamilton ( mi, Kirikiriroa) 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 region. With a territorial population of , it is the country's ...

, and studied at

Matamata College Matamata College is a co-educational state secondary school located in Matamata, New Zealand. History The college was declared open on 11 February 1924 by the Minister for Education, James Parr. In July 2012, a student was killed by a tra ...

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

Waikato University , mottoeng = For The People , established = 1964; years ago , endowment = (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $263.6 million (31 December 2020) , chancellor = Sir Anand Satyanand, GNZM, QSO, KStJ , vice_chancellor = Neil Quigley , city ...

in 1977, and a doctorate from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

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 a ...

.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 The New Zealand Mathematical Society is a New Zealand based learned society of mathematicians. It is listed by the Royal Society of New Zealand as the affiliate organisation responsible for mathematics research, and by the International Mathematical ...

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 Te Apārangi) is an independent, statutory not-for-profit body in New Zealand providing funding and policy advice in the fields of sciences and the humanities. History The R ...

, and in 2012 became a fellow of the

. He was named as a Distinguished Alumnus of Waikato University for 2013. 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 combinatorial community. In pursuit of this goal, the ICA sponsors conferences, ...

for his "many distinguished contributions to combinatorics over the last 40 years." In 2014 the Royal Society Te Apārangi awarded Conder the

Hector Medal The Hector Medal, formerly known as the Hector Memorial Medal, is a science award given by the Royal Society Te Apārangi in memory of Sir James Hector to researchers working in New Zealand. It is awarded annually in rotation for different science ...

, and in 2018 the Jones Medal, named after Vaughan Jones, "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 on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Queen of New Zealand, "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have ren ...

(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