Martin Bridson


Martin Robert Bridson is a Manx mathematician. He is
the Whitehead Professor of Pure Mathematics at Oxford, and head of the Clay Mathematics Institute. He previously held the role of head of University of Oxford's Mathematical Institute. He is a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and an Honorary Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. Specializing in geometry, topology and group theory, Bridson is best known for his work in Geometric Group Theory.

Education and early life

Bridson is a native of the Isle of Man. He was educated at St Ninian's High School, Douglas, then Hertford College, Oxford, and Cornell University, receiving a Master of Arts degree from Oxford in 1986, and a Master of Science degree in 1988 followed by a PhD in 1991 from Cornell. His PhD thesis was supervised by Karen Vogtmann, and was entitled Geodesics and Curvature in Metric Simplicial Complexes.

Career and research

He was an assistant professor at Princeton University until 1996, was twice a visiting professor at the University of Geneva, and was Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College London from 2002 to 2007. From 1993 to 2002 he was a Tutorial Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and reader then Professor of Topology in the University of Oxford. He remains a Supernumerary Fellow of Pembroke College.
In 2016, Bridson became only the second Manxman to ever be elected to the Royal Society, after Edward Forbes.

Honours and awards

Bridson was an invited lecturer at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2006.