Professor John McNamara

Professor John McNamara John McNamara is made Doctor of Science for his contribution to mathematics (Wednesday afternoon, 18 July 2012). His undergraduate degree was in mathematics at Oxford, followed by an MSc in Astronomy at Sussex. He then returned to Oxford for his PhD in Astrophysics, originally under the supervision of Dennis Schiama and then under Professor Roger Penrose, working on the stability properties of standard black hole models. After his PhD, John moved back to Sussex as a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Professor John Bather. His work here was in the area of probability theory and decision-making - a change of field within mathematics. During his PhD study John had become interested in evolutionary biology. He began working with Alasdair Houston on the application of mathematics to decision-making in animals.