Professor J.D. Maitland Wright

Qualifications

MA (Aberdeen) MA DPhil (Oxon) FRSE

Role or Position

Research Professor in Mathematics at the University of Aberdeen. Lecturer in Mathematics at Christ Church

Email address

maitland.wright@chch.ox.ac.uk

Academic Background

Senior Mathematical Prize and Johnson Prize. Appointed at 23 to a Junior Lectureship at Christ Church, teaching mathematics to physicists and engineers. Became a Fellow and Tutor of St Catherine’s College at 26. When 28 was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the University of Reading. Since 1989 has been a Non-Stipendiary Lecturer in Mathematics at Christ Church. In 2004 was appointed to a (part-time) Sixth Century Research Professorship in Mathematics at the University of Aberdeen. In 1994-96 was seconded to Cambridge as the Deputy Director of the Isaac Newton Institute. (At that time the Director was Sir Michael Atiyah, who was simultaneously President of the Royal Society and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.) Served eight years as Treasurer of the London Mathematical Society.

Undergraduate Teaching

Topics in Analysis as required by the Mathematics Tutors.

Research Interests

Wright is an Analyst whose interests include Non-commutative Measure Theory, Operator Algebras and the mathematical foundations of Quantum Mechanics.

Publications include:

Some 120 papers in the mathematical journals. Highlights include a solution of the Mackey-Gleason Problem (with L.J. Bunce) and, with K. Saito, a recently achieved classification of “small” monotone complete algebras of operators on Hilbert space. The latter was funded by a research grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/D075122/1).

Hobbies

Listening to music, reading, walking, travel, gastronomy.

Links

http://www.maths.abdn.ac.uk/staff/display.php?key=j.d.m.wright