Introduction

I went to Moorside High School, a comprehensive school in Swinton, near Manchester, and then, for Sixth Form, to Eccles College.  I was an undergraduate student here in Oxford, at New College, where I read Physics.  I did my PhD at the University of Bristol, in Theoretical Physics, advised by Professor Sir Michael Berry FRS.  I held a Lectureship at the University of Manchester before moving to the University of Bristol, where I became the Henry Overton Will Professor of Mathematics.  I was, at various times, the Head of the School of Mathematics and the Dean of Science in Bristol.  I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2009.  I moved to Oxford to take up the Sedleian Chair in 2019.