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Left: The Great Gate, Christ's College. Above:
The Fellows' Building (1640), where my College rooms are situated
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Receiving the Webby Award for Plus from Sam Donaldson (left) in
San Fransisco, July 2001
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The amplitude (vertical logarithmic scale) of the
response to periodic forcing (frequency on horizontal scale) of a
marginally stable fluid-dynamical system modelled with the spatially
varying Ginzburg-Landau equation. Resonant peaks can clearly be seen near
the global-mode frequencies
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Dr Robert Hunt
University of Cambridge
Positions currently held
I am the Senior Tutor of Christ's College in the University of Cambridge, carrying overall
responsibility for the educational provision of the entire College:
admissions, teaching and examinations in every subject. As the
Senior Tutor, I am of course a Fellow (in fact a Clayton Fellow)
and one of the undergraduate Tutors (who give pastoral care).
I am also the Director of Studies in Mathematics at Christ's
College, with responsibility for interviews, admissions and teaching for
mathematics. I teach undergraduate mathematics students at the College
personally and advise them on course options. More information on
admission to the College to study mathematics can be found in the
section below.
Finally, I am a Lecturer in the Department of Applied Mathematics and
Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), part of the Faculty of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge. My research
interests are listed in the section below.
Before all this, I held the following posts:
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Deputy Director of the Isaac Newton
Institute for Mathematical Sciences (the place where the proof of
Fermat's Last Theorem was first unveiled), 1999-2008
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Adviser to the House of Commons' Treasury
Select Committee, 2002-2004
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Executive Editor (and before that, Editor, 1999-2001) of Plus, the online magazine for the
general public about the applications of mathematics, part of the Millennium Mathematics Project
-
CATAM Director for the Faculty of Mathematics, 1997-2000
(and later as assessor and advisor). CATAM is the computational coursework
component of the Mathematical
Tripos
-
Stipendiary Lecturer in Mathematics at St Catherine's College in the University of Oxford, 1995-97
-
Member of the Oxford Centre for
Industrial and Applied Mathematics (OCIAM) in the Mathematical Institute at Oxford
University, 1995-97
-
Systems Analyst (occasional) at Data Connection Limited, now
known as Metaswitch Networks, 1983-87
Lecture courses (past and present)
Lecture notes, handouts and problem sheets for some of the
courses listed below may be found on my lecturing
page.
Admissions
Christ's College is a
particularly friendly and high-achieving College of the University of Cambridge, with outstanding
strength in mathematics. Its alumni include Charles Darwin, John Milton and Ali G. As Director
of Studies in Mathematics at Christ's College I interview all
candidates for admission to the College in mathematics. Details of the
application process, including information about the University course,
the College Fellows, Open Days, interviews and offers can be found here.
More general information about applying to Christ's, including details of
Open Days, can be found here.
Awards
Research Interests
I am a member of the Waves
Group in the Department of
Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. Particular
interests include:
-
Applications of mathematics to commercial, industrial and financial
problems
-
Fluid dynamics, especially the hydrodynamic stability of wakes and shear
flows
-
Causality in partial differential equations
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The relationship between local and global instabilities in
spatially-developing media; global modes
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Asymptotic analysis
-
Special functions
University and College Societies
Public Understanding
Besides my work on Plus
mentioned above, I am regularly involved in activities that enhance the
public understanding of mathematics. As well as lectures and public talks
for schoolchildren, teachers, the general public and even local education
authorities about the applications of mathematics to everyday life, I have
been interviewed on Radio 4 and other radio stations on many topics
including the teaching of mathematics, the numbers studying it at
University, the relevance of Newton's Laws of Motion to the modern world,
the philosophy of mathematics and Newton's personality. I took part in
Radio 4's The Eureka Years with Adam Hart-Davis and was
scientific adviser to the BBC2 programme Newton: The Dark Heretic.
I have even been interviewed by Japanese TV about Newton's work on light
(his Opticks, published in 1704).
At the turn of the millennium, I was involved in the design and
production of the Newton
Institute's contribution to World Mathematics Year 2000: the Posters in the London
Underground project. This series of 12 posters about the relevance of
mathematics to the real world was displayed month by month in trains on
the Tube, but ever since then the posters have gone from strength to
strength, winning awards, starring in films including Agent Cody
Banks and The Perfect Man, and even appearing on TV in
Dawson's Creek and Dr Who. Long after the original poster
project finished, the Newton Institute continues to receive regular
requests for reprints from schools and Universities world-wide, and the
posters have been reprinted several times. As well as the original
posters, which are available from the Mathematical
Association, a handy pocket-sized booklet is
now available.
The Treasury
Select Committee has asked me on several occasions for advice on the
charges made by credit card providers and ways to improve transparency and
competition in the credit card market. I have been interviewed on BBC2,
Radio 4 and in many national newspapers about this topic.
Education and Qualifications
Dr Robert Hunt
Senior Tutor
Christ's College
Cambridge
CB2 3BU
England
E-mail: senior.tutor (at) christs.cam.ac.uk (official email) or reh10 (at)
cam.ac.uk (personal email)
Telephone: (01223) 334953 (secretary)
Fax: (01223) 334973
