Nick Woodhouse
Emeritus Fellow
Biography
Nick Woodhouse is Emeritus Fellow in Mathematics at Wadham College. His academic work has been at the interface between mathematics and physics, initially in relativity, and later in more general connections between geometry and physical theory. Nick became an Emeritus Fellow in October 2016.
Greatly influenced by Roger Penrose when a graduate student in London, Nick worked briefly as a post-doc to John Wheeler in the Physics Department at Princeton. In 1976 he followed Roger to Oxford, and has worked here ever since.
Nick’s main research interests are covered in two monograph, Geometric quantization (1990) and Integrability, self-duality and twistor theory (1996), the latter written with Lionel Mason, who was his pupil at Wadham and is now a Fellow of St Peters’. He has also written undergraduate texts on relativity and classical mechanics.
Since 2000, Nick has focussed on the Mathematical Institute, of which he was Chairman from 2001 to 2010. This was a period during which the department expanded and planned its new building, into which it moves in 2013.
Nick was an undergraduate at Christ Church (Matric 1967) after which he did a PhD under Felix Pirani at King's College, London (1970-3). He returned to Oxford in 1976 from a post-doctoral position at Princeton. He was elected to a tutorial fellowship in mathematics at Wadham in 1977. Other posts he has held include: Senior Tutor 1982-6, Tutor for Admissions 1989-92, Mathematical Sciences Faculty Board Chair 1988-90, Member of General Board 1992-7, Member of North Commission 1994-8, Member of Oxford University Council 2000-2001, Chairman of Mathematics 2001-2010, Fellow of Eton College 1995-2007, Member of Council, London Mathematical Society 1998-2009 (Treasurer 2002-9), Deputy Head, MPLS Division 2011-12. He has been President of the Clay Mathematics Institute since 2012.