I am ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, where, together with Eva Miranda, I co-founded the SYMCREA Excellence Cluster - an internationally visible centre for research at the interface of geometry, mathematical physics, and related fields. Before relocating to Barcelona in 2024, I held the Chair in Mathematics at the University of Birmingham (2018–2025), and earlier full/associate/assistant professorships at Loughborough University and the University of Manchester. In 2002 I became the first woman appointed by open call to a University Lectureship in Pure Mathematics at Cambridge, where I was also a Fellow of Jesus College.
My research lies in integrable systems, at the crossroads of analysis, geometry, mathematical physics and algebra, with contributions spanning isomonodromic deformations, Frobenius manifolds, quantum Teichmüller theory, Cherednik algebras and mirror symmetry. My doctoral work at SISSA produced two foundational papers published on Inventiones Mathematicae and on Mathematische Annalen that remain widely cited, and I have since published in leading journals including Advances in Mathematics, Communications in Mathematical Physics, and International Mathematics Research Notices.
Over my career I have attracted approximately €2M in external funding as Principal Investigator, including the highly competitive EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship (2006), a Leverhulme Research Project Grant (2022), and successive major EPSRC awards. I have been the European Mathematical Society Distinguished Speaker at the Poisson 2024 Conference in Napoli and an invited lecturer at premier international venues including the International Congress on Mathematical Physics, the British Mathematical Colloquium, the Banff International Research Station, RIMS Kyoto, the Simons Center, and the CIME Summer School.
I recently joined the ArXiv scientific advisory board and have served on the Council of the European Mathematical Society, the Scientific Board of the Banff International Research Station, the ICMS Advisory Board, and as Chair of the EPSRC Mathematical Sciences Prioritisation Panel. I founded and led the Geometry and Mathematical Physics group at Birmingham, and have mentored current and former group members to secure over £3M in external research funding. Building vibrant, internationally connected research communities and sustaining a strong commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion has been central to my approach throughout my career.
During my career, I mentored for 4 Phd students as principal supervisor and eight post docs (Guido Carlet, Idan Eisner, Timothy Magee, Giordano Cotti, Livia Campo, Harini Desiraju, Omar Kidwai, Nikita Nikolaev).