Name Geoff Smith | Role Mathematician | |
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Books A Mathematical Olympiad Primer | ||
Geoffrey Charles Smith, MBE (born 1953) is a British mathematician. He is Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Bath, where he works in group theory.
He was educated at Trinity School in Croydon, and attended Keble College, Oxford, the University of Warwick, and the University of Manchester, where he gained a Ph.D. in 1983. His thesis, Zeta functions of torsion-free finitely generated nilpotent groups, was written under the direction of Dan Segal.
Smith was the leader of the United Kingdom team at the International Mathematical Olympiad between 2002 and 2010, a longer continuous period than any other person. Under his leadership, the team achieved an average of 20th place, stronger than under the preceding leader (1999 to 2001, 24th), but weaker than in the previous period of two alternating leaders (1991 to 1998, 11th/12th). He returned to the position as the leader of the British Mathematical Olympiad from 2013.
Smith oversaw a quantitative increase in training: annual events in Bath (moving to The Queen's College, Oxford from 2009), at Oundle School, in Hungary, at Trinity College, Cambridge, and immediately prior to the IMO itself. He also thrice won the IMO Golden Microphone, awarded to the national team leader who makes the most speeches to the IMO Jury. In 2010 he was elected to the IMO Advisory Board for a four-year period. Smith was elected as the chair of the International Mathematical Olympiad for the term of 2014-2018.
Smith also prepared UK teams for the Romanian Masters in Mathematics tournament (which they won in 2008), and for participation as guests at the annual Balkan Mathematical Olympiad.
As well as group theory, he is also interested in Euclidean geometry. He often collaborates with Christopher Bradley and David Monk, and has published several papers on Forum Geometricorum, the online geometry journal.
In June 2011 Smith was awarded an MBE for services to education following his contributions toward organising Royal Institution Maths Masterclasses.