Geoffrey Grimmett

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Geoffrey Grimmett
FRS OLY
Born
Geoffrey Richard Grimmett

(1950-12-20) 20 December 1950 (age 73)[1]
Birmingham, England, UK
NationalityBritish
Alma materMerton College, Oxford (BA, DPhil)
Spouse
Rosine Bonay
​
(m. 1986)​
[1][5]
ChildrenHugo Grimmett[5]
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisRandom Fields and Random Graphs (1974)
Doctoral advisor
Websitewww.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~grg

Geoffrey Richard Grimmett FRS[6] OLY (born 20 December 1950)[1] is an English mathematician known for his work on the mathematics of random systems arising in probability theory[7][8][9] and statistical mechanics, especially percolation theory[10] and the contact process.[11][2] He is the Professor of Mathematical Statistics in the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge, and was the Master of Downing College, Cambridge, from 2013 to 2018.[12]

Education[edit]

Grimmett was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Merton College, Oxford. He graduated in 1971, and completed his DPhil in 1974[13] under the supervision of John Hammersley and Dominic Welsh.[4]

Career and research[edit]

Grimmett served as the IBM Research Fellow at New College, Oxford, from 1974 to 1976 before moving to the University of Bristol.[1][14] He was appointed Professor of Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge in 1992, becoming a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.[15] He was Director of the Statistical Laboratory from 1994 to 2000, Head of the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics (DPMMS) from 2002 to 2007, and is a trustee of the Rollo Davidson Prize.[16]

Grimmett is particularly recognised for his achievements in the rigorous theory of disordered physical systems.[6] Especially influential is his work on and around percolation theory, the contact model for stochastic spatial epidemics, and the random-cluster model, a class that includes the Ising/Potts models of ferromagnetism.[6] His monograph on percolation is a standard work in a core area of probability, and is widely cited.[6] His breadth within probability is emphasized by his important contributions to probabilistic combinatorics and probabilistic number theory.[6]

In October 2013 he was appointed Master of Downing College, Cambridge, succeeding Barry Everitt.[5] He ended his term as Master on 30 September 2018, being replaced by Alan Bookbinder.[17]

He was appointed Chair of the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research in September 2020.[18] He was succeeded by Catherine Hobbs on September 1 2023.[19]

Awards and honours[edit]

Grimmett was awarded the Rollo Davidson Prize in 1989[20] and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014.[6]

Personal life[edit]

Grimmett is the son of Benjamin J Grimmett and Patricia W (Lewis) Grimmett.[21]

He competed at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal as a member of the Great Britain Men's Foil Team, finishing 6th.[22]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e Anon (2014). "Grimmett, Prof. Geoffrey Richard". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U18289. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ a b Geoffrey Grimmett publications indexed by Google Scholar Edit this at Wikidata
  3. ^ Grimmett, G. R.; McDiarmid, C. J. H. (2008). "On colouring random graphs". Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 77 (2): 313. doi:10.1017/S0305004100051124. S2CID 3421302.
  4. ^ a b Geoffrey Grimmett at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  5. ^ a b c Professor Geoffrey Grimmett elected as next Master
  6. ^ a b c d e f Anon (2014). "Professor Geoffrey Grimmett FRS". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 11 June 2018. Retrieved 1 May 2014. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

    "All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-11-11)
  7. ^ Grimmett, G. R.; Stirzaker, D. R. (2001). Probability and Random Processes. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198572220.
  8. ^ Grimmett, G. R. (2010). Probability on Graphs. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521147354.
  9. ^ Aldous, David (2013). "Book Review: Probability on graphs: random processes on graphs and lattices by Geoffrey Grimmett". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 51 (1): 173–175. doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-2013-01428-9. ISSN 0273-0979.
  10. ^ Grimmett, G. (1999). "What is Percolation?". Percolation. Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften. Vol. 321. pp. 1–31. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-03981-6_1. ISBN 978-3-642-08442-3.
  11. ^ "Geoffrey Grimmett's homepage at the University of Cambridge".
  12. ^ Geoffrey Grimmett publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  13. ^ Grimmett, Geoffrey (1974). Random Fields and Random Graphs (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 500458360. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.457489.
  14. ^ Frieze, A. M.; Grimmett, G. R. (1985). "The shortest-path problem for graphs with random arc-lengths". Discrete Applied Mathematics. 10: 57–77. doi:10.1016/0166-218X(85)90059-9.
  15. ^ "Fellows of the Colleges: Churchill". Cambridge University Reporter. University of Cambridge. 2 October 2008. Retrieved 7 May 2009.
  16. ^ "Trustees of the Rollo Davidson Trust". Archived from the original on 29 September 2008. Retrieved 7 May 2009.
  17. ^ "Downing College announces Master Elect". 29 November 2017.
  18. ^ "Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research | New Chair".
  19. ^ "Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research | New Chair".
  20. ^ "Rollo Davidson Awards 1976 – 2023". University of Cambridge Statistical Laboratory. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  21. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  22. ^ "SR/Olympic Sports". Archived from the original on 20 October 2012.
Academic offices
Preceded by Master of Downing College, Cambridge
2013–2018 		Succeeded by

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