URSULA MARTIN is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, with a courtesy appointment in the Mathematical Institute. She works at the interface of mathematics and computer science, where her contributions include an explanation of the power of logic for reasoning about practical systems with feedback, and results linking randomness and symmetry. She is currently working with philosophers and social scientists to understand the production of mathematics as a collaborative activity.
Before joining Oxford in 2014 she worked at Queen Mary University of London for 10 years, in a senior management position. She is known for her leadership in interdisciplinary and industry facing work, and for effective management across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines and activities. She has also held positions at the Universities of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cambridge and St Andrews, where she was the first female full professor since its foundation in 1411. She holds a bachelors degree from Cambridge, and a PhD from Warwick, both in mathematics. She is involved nationally and internationally in policy and strategy through work for government and learned societies in both computing and mathematics, where she has held a number of leading roles, and has also spent time at both Intel in Cambridge UK, and SRI International in Menlo Park. Throughout her career she has worked with many groups to develop the careers of women in science.
She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 New Year Honours List.