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Sir David Wallace, Director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical 
Sciences, the N.M. Rothschild & Sons Professor of Mathematical Sciences and 
Master of Churchill College at Cambridge University

Thursday, March 18 
11:30am – 1:00pm 

“Five Millenia of Mathematics and its Applications.”  

Sir David will discuss the origins of mathematics in the earliest civilizations of 
Sumer and Babylon, which is now Iraq, over 5,000 years ago.  He will provide 
examples of the ways the application of mathematics were integral to the 
development of these and modern civilizations.  The discussion will be 
illustrated with examples from some of the research programmes at the 
Newton Institute, spanning astronomy to zoology, including climate modelling, 
elementary particle theory and quantitative finance.

Webcast information is also attached.

The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is a national and 
international visitor research institute that conducts research on selected 
themes in mathematics and the mathematical sciences with applications over 
a wide range of science and technology.   Churchill College, which Sir David 
serves as Master, received its Royal Charter in 1960, is the national and 
Commonwealth memorial to Sir Winston Churchill, and serves to embody his 
vision of how higher education can benefit society in the modern age. Like the 
thirty other colleges in Cambridge University, Churchill College is committed to 
outstanding academic achievement; more than twenty of its members have 
won the Nobel Prize. While it focuses especially on science, engineering and 
technology, its teaching and research also reflect the intense interest in the 
arts and humanities of Sir Winston himself, whose own Nobel Prize was for 
literature. The college seeks to builds bridges from academe to business and 
other professions.  The Baker Center has twice collaborated with the Churchill 
Archives Centre at Churchill College to hold international conferences – the 
first about Sir Winston Churchill and the Atlantic Alliance held in Knoxville in 
2006, and the second about the Legacy of the Cold War held at Cambridge 
this past November.  Thus, the Center is especially pleased to welcome Sir 
David to UTK.   

Sir David’s undergraduate and postgraduate study was in theoretical physics 
at the University of Edinburgh, followed by research at Princeton University as 
a Harkness Fellow.  He then served as a lecturer in the Physics Department at 
the University of Southampton, and was subsequently appointed as the Tait 
Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh,  the Director 
of Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre and Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough 
University.   In addition to his current professorship and positions at the 
Newton Institute and Churchill College, Sir David is also a Fellow of the 
Institute of Physics and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. He 
has held a number of honorary positions, including Treasurer and Vice-
President of the Royal Society, and President of the Institute of Physics. He is 
Chair of the Council for the Mathematical Sciences, and has served as a 
member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the 
Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, as an Expert to the European 
Commission, and as Chair of the UK e-Science Steering Committee. He was 
awarded a CBE for services to parallel computing in 1996, and was knighted in 
2004 for services to UK science, technology and engineering.