Fry brings outstanding experience to the role of communicating to diverse audiences, including with people not previously interested in maths. She will follow in the footsteps of giants of public engagement with mathematics, including David Spiegelhalter and the late Stephen Hawking as she joins the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP).
“I’m really looking forward to joining the Cambridge community,” said Fry, “to those chance encounters and interactions that end up sparking new ideas and collaborations: it’s so exciting to be in an environment where every single person you speak to is working on something absolutely fascinating.”
Fry won the Christopher Zeeman Medal for promoting mathematics in 2018 and the Royal Society David Attenborough Award in 2024, and is the current President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.
She is currently Professor of the Mathematics of Cities at UCL, where she works with physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, architects and geographers to study patterns in human behaviour – particularly in an urban setting. Her research applies to a wide range of social problems and questions, from shopping and transport to urban crime, riots and terrorism, and she has applied this research by advising and working alongside governments, police forces, supermarkets and health analysts.
“When you create a mathematical model, it doesn’t really matter how beautifully crafted your equations are, or how accurate your simulations are,” said Fry. “You have to think about how the work you’ve created is going to be seen and perceived by other people and how it’s going to be understood or misunderstood.”
The new professorship builds on Cambridge’s long track record in sharing maths. DAMTP is also the home of the largest subject-specific outreach and engagement project in the University – the Millennium Mathematics Project (MMP).
Fry says she plans for her work at Cambridge to follow on from Spiegelhalter’s extensive public communication work, which she sees as a vital part of the research process.
“Communication is not an optional extra: if you are creating something that is used by, or interacts with members of the public or the world in general, then I think it’s genuinely your moral duty to engage the people affected by it,” she said. “I’d love to build and grow a community around excellence in mathematical communication at Cambridge – so that we’re really researching the best possible methods to communicate with people.”
“Hannah is an outstanding mathematician and researcher, and one of the UK’s best maths communicators,” said Professor Colm-cille Caulfield, Head of DAMTP. “Mathematics affects so many aspects of our everyday lives in interesting and exciting ways, and Hannah will strengthen the excellent work already being done at Cambridge in this area. We in DAMTP and our Faculty of Mathematics colleagues in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics are so excited to have her join us.”
Professor Fry announced her appointment at an event yesterday (21 November) organised by the MMP in collaboration with the Newton Gateway to Mathematics at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge. The event – Communicating mathematical and data sciences – what does success look like? – explored evidence for effectively communicating mathematical and data science research to policymakers, mainstream media and the wider public.
“Professor Fry is one of the most exciting voices in science and mathematics today,” said Professor Nigel Peake, Head of the School of the Physical Sciences. “Her deep commitment to sharing the excitement of maths with people of all ages and backgrounds, at a time when mathematical literacy has never been so important, will be an enormous benefit to Cambridge, and the UK as a whole.”
“The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the third-oldest university in continuous operation.”
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