Sarah B. Hart is a British mathematician specialising in

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ...

. She is a former professor of mathematics at

Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

where she was the Head of Mathematics and Statistics until 2022. In 2020, she was appointed to what may be the oldest chair in mathematics in Britain, the

Gresham Professor of Geometry The Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1597, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to ten and in addition the ...

Gresham College Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in Central London, England. It does not enroll students or award degrees. It was founded in 1596 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, and hosts ove ...

. She is the first woman to hold this position "since the chair was established in 1597". Hart is a keen expositor of mathematics: she has written about the mathematics of

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler, whaling ship ''Pequod (Moby- ...

, and her work has been featured in websites like 'Theorem of the Day'.

Education and career

While still in secondary school, Hart published an exploration (undertaken with her sister) into extending

Euler's polyhedral formula In mathematics, and more specifically in algebraic topology and polyhedral combinatorics, the Euler characteristic (or Euler number, or Euler–Poincaré characteristic) is a topological invariant, a number that describes a topological space ...

to four dimensions. Hart read mathematics as an undergraduate at

Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

Oxford 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 the ...

, and has an MSc in Mathematics from the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

. Her doctorate, from the

University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) was a university based in the centre of the city of Manchester in England. It specialised in technical and scientific subjects and was a major centre for research. On 1 Oct ...

(UMIST), addressed ''

Coxeter Groups In mathematics, a Coxeter group, named after Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter, H. S. M. Coxeter, is an group (mathematics), abstract group that admits a group presentation, formal description in terms of Reflection (mathematics), reflections (or Kal ...

: Conjugacy Classes and Relative Dominance'', under the supervision of Peter Rowley. She remained in Manchester on an EPSRC research fellowship and then a temporary teaching position before obtaining a position as lecturer at Birkbeck in 2004. She was promoted to professor in 2013 and became head of the Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics in 2016. She was also president of the

British Society for the History of Mathematics The British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) was founded in 1971 to promote research into the history of mathematics at all levels and to further the use of the history of mathematics in education. The BSHM is concerned with all peri ...

2020 to 2023.

Bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Sarah B. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British mathematicians British women mathematicians Group theorists Alumni of the University of Oxford Alumni of the University of Manchester Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Academics of Gresham College People educated at the City of London School for Girls