Professor Colva Roney-Dougal OBE

Colva Mary Roney-Dougal OBE is a British mathematician specializing in group theory and computational algebra. She is Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews, where she is first female Head of Pure Mathematics.

Professor Roney-Dougal did her first degree at St Andrews, where she initially enrolled as an English and Philosophy student before deciding to become a mathematician. She did her PhD at Queen Mary University of London, before going on to postdoctoral positions at the University of Sydney, and in Computer Science at St Andrews, before taking up a permanent position in Mathematics at St Andrews in 2003, where she has been ever since.

Her research encompasses group theory (the mathematical study of symmetry), combinatorics (the mathematics of counting) and computation: her 2013 research monograph “The maximal subgroups of the low-dimensional classical groups”, written with Dr John Bray and Professor Derek Holt rapidly became a classic reference in the field.
In addition to her research work, Professor Roney-Dougal adores explaining mathematics to the general public. In 2024 she was awarded an OBE in recognition of her services to Mathematics and Education.

Photo: Russ Woodroofe, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons