[hunnovi]

She is great at popularity regarding mathematics, but her achievements do not seem to be primarily within hardcore mathematical research, more within popularity and communication.

> She is the first Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge,

I am not sure that she is a "math professor", but that she is a "professor of the public understanding of mathematics". The latter seems softer.

[dofm]

She was a professor in the mathematics of cities (applied spatial mathematics) before that — in her early thirties.

She is an expert in applied mathematics (president of the applicable UK institute, actually) and this is absolutely of a piece with that; it's not some wishy-washy thing that she does.

Public understanding of science has proved to be a valuable field, and I think this will be important. Her Oxford opposite number, arguably, is Marcus du Sautoy, who has the Public Understanding of Science professorship that was originally created for Dawkins.

[hunnovi]

> She was a professor in the mathematics of cities (applied spatial mathematics) before that — in her early thirties.

But, that was not at Cambridge, which is what the original post by vgivanovic claimed, right? It was at University College London.

> Public understanding of science has proved to be a valuable field,

I never contested that, assuming that it is done responsibly and well. But that field, as well as a large proportion of her activities and work, as well as the title "Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics", seem softer and less hardcore than many other titles for professors regarding mathematics.

A field can be both soft and valuable, assuming the field is handled responsibly and well.

> president of the applicable UK institute

A president is not primarily a researcher, right? More about external relations, strategy, management, etc., as far as I know. Mentioning her being a president weakens your argument, and strengthens my argument, as far as I can tell. There are other former presidents of that institute that likewise have had a more educational focus instead of hardcore research focus, like Celia Hoyles as far as I can tell.

> She is an expert in applied mathematics

She does have a PhD, but apart from that, her research work has been more focused on softer topics as far as I can tell. Do you know of any work after her PhD that was more hardcore research? The publications I found were more soft, like "The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus (2015)", a few years after completing her PhD.

Do you know if she has been employed in the private sector regarding what one could perceive as more hardcore research or engineering? She seems to be very hardworking and active, and have written a lot of books and worked with a lot of movies and other media, apart from being a president of an institute and being a professor, so it would be impressive if she also found both time and energy for hardcore research. I don't know if other professors would be able to take on that many challenges at once. She cannot be described as lazy by any means.

[seanhunter]

I have no idea why you have this weird axe to grind. Yes she has done research

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01303

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1473-3099(20)30457-6/full...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03164-7

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.16.20023754v...

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-...

Etc etc. That’s papers in Nature, The Lancet, The European Journal of Applied Mathematics etc. If you actually searched you would have found tons and tons of papers and citations. She clearly does “hardcore” research by any reasonable definition as you would expect given she has been for some time a professor at UCL which is a top-tier university.

[dofm]

Between 2017 and 2021 she also had two children, cervical cancer, a radical hysterectomy, lymphoedema and reconstructive surgery for that.

She is a properly impressive person who warrants no shade, but it never surprises me to see it.

[globular-toast]

I guess she's no Richard Feynman, just like literally everyone else on the planet...

[hunnovi]

There are examples like Stephen Hawking, and he did truly impressive work in hardcore science as far as I know, despite the challenges and obstacles that he had in life. Hannah Fry has done a lot of soft work, lots of books and other media, lots of activity, a very hardworking person, and very skilled at popularity work. But that does not change my impression that her focus is not really on hardcore science.

[tclancy]

Signed up just to post that? You’ll fit in well here.