Frances Kirwan - Curriculim Vitae#

Frances Kirwan studied at Cambridge University, but went on to graduate work at Oxford, where she obtained her PhD in 1984 under the supervision of Sir Michael Atiyah.

She held a junior position at Harvard University, and, after returning to the United Kingdom, she became Fellow of Magdalen College, and later of Balliol College, where she was finally appointed as University Professor in 1996. Since 2017 she is Savilian Professor of Geometry, New College, Oxford.

In 2005,the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council awarded her a Senior Research Fellowship for her work on "the moduli spaces of complex algebraic curves", a central topic in modern algebraic geometry.

Her research domain is algebraic and symplectic geometry. She made recognized breakthroughs in invariant theory. Her work endeavours to understand the structure of geometric objects by subtly investigating in a combined way their algebraic and topological properties. This work calls on facts and techniques from many other areas of mathematics.

She was a speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich in 1994 and in Beijing in 2002. From 2004 to 2006, she served as President of the London Mathematical Society, the second-youngest president in the society's history. She also served on the Programme Committee of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid in 2006.