Geoffrey Grimmett | |
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Born | Geoffrey Richard Grimmett 20 December 1950[1] Birmingham, England, UK |
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | Merton College, Oxford (BA, DPhil) |
Spouse |
Rosine Bonay (m. 1986) |
Children | Hugo Grimmett[5] |
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Thesis | Random Fields and Random Graphs (1974) |
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Website | www |
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]
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]
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]
Grimmett was awarded the Rollo Davidson Prize in 1989[20] and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014.[6]
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]
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