Prof. Ursula Martin CBE FREng FRSE DSc
University of Oxford
Andrew Wiles Building
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter
Woodstock Road
Oxford
OX2 6GG
Ursula Martin is an Emeritus Professor in Oxford Mathematics (2018 - ) and a Fellow of Wadham College Oxford. She is also a Professor Emerita at the University of Edinburgh (2022 - ), and a Distinguished Honorary Fellow of the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge (2023 - ).
She is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. She is a Doctor of Science Honoris Causa of the University of London, and an Honorary Fellow of Royal Holloway University of London. She holds a PhD and MSc from the University of Warwick, and an MA and BA from the University of Cambridge.
Before joining Oxford, she was Professor of Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London (2003 - 2013), where she was Vice-Principal for Science and Engineering (2005 - 2009), and Director of the impactQM project (2009 - 2012), an innovative knowledge transfer initiative. Earlier in her career she held appointments at St Andrews, Manchester and Urbana-Champaign.
Numerous policy roles have included the UK Defence Science Advisory Council; the 2001 and 2008 UK HEFCE Research Assessment Exercise Panels for Computer Science; UKRI's Interdisciplinary Advisory Panel for the 2021 Research Excellence Framework; the 2017 UKRI Bond Review of Mathematics Knowledge Transfer (which heavily cited her own research on impact); and service on committees of the Royal Academy of Engineering and other UK and international public bodies and professional organisations.
For more details please see her personal website.
Her research, initially in algebra, logic and the use of computers to create mathematical proofs, broadened to encompass wider social and cultural approaches to understanding the circulation and impact of foundational research in computer science and mathematics. With international partners ranging from defence companies to computer museums, her unique collaborative research portfolio spans mathematics, computer science, and the humanities, with wide-ranging academic, practical, and cultural impact. She is particularly known for leading the first scholarly investigation of the mathematics of Ada Lovelace.
Throughout her career she has been involved in many activities for women in science, including establishing the pioneering Women@CL project at the University of Cambridge; serving on the UK Royal Society's Diversity Committee; and chairing ACM-W, the Committee on Women of the ACM.
Her research has been supported by UK and European funding agencies, and companies including Intel, Qinetiq and Microsoft. She held a UKRI/EPSRC Established Career Fellowship (2014 - 2023), and currently holds an Emeritus Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust (2024 - 2026).
For more details please see her personal website.