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Professor Tim Burness
BSc(Warw.), MSc(Warw.), PhD(Lond.)
Current positions
Professor of Pure Mathematics
School of Mathematics
Contact
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Biography
I went to Birkdale High School, a comprehensive school in Southport, Merseyside, and I did my A-levels at King George V College, also in Southport. I read Mathematics at the University of Warwick and I did my PhD at Imperial College London under the supervision of Professor Martin Liebeck. I was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at St John's College, Oxford and I held a Lady Davis Fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I was appointed Lecturer in Pure Mathematics at the University of Southampton and I moved to the University of Bristol in 2013. For three years (2018-2021), I was the Associate Chair of the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research and I was promoted to Professor of Pure Mathematics in 2021. I have been Director of the Institute for Pure Mathematics since 2022.
Research interests
My main area of research is in group theory. I am interested in simple groups, both finite and algebraic, with a particular focus on subgroup structure, conjugacy classes and representation theory.
I am also interested in permutation groups and related combinatorics, and in the application of probabilistic and computational methods.
I am happy to supervise PhD projects in all of these areas - please see my personal webpages
https://seis.bristol.ac.uk/~tb13602/index.html
for more details about my research interests and recent papers. If you would like to know more about my research, then please feel free to contact me by email.
Projects and supervisions
Thesis supervisions
On the Spread of Classical Groups
Supervisors
Almost elusive permutation groups
Supervisors
Publications
Selected publications
22/01/2021On solvable factors of almost simple groups
Advances in Mathematics
The classification of extremely primitive groups
International Mathematics Research Notices
Topological generation of exceptional algebraic groups
Advances in Mathematics
Recent publications
01/01/2024On the generation of simple groups by Sylow subgroups
Amitsur Centennial Symposium
On the maximal overgroups of Sylow subgroups of finite groups
Advances in Mathematics
Topological generation of simple algebraic groups
Journal of the European Mathematical Society
Normalisers of maximal tori and a conjecture of Vdovin
Journal of Algebra
On base sizes for primitive groups of product type
Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra
Teaching
In 2022/23, I am lecturing MATH M4600 Representation Theory in TB1 and MATH 21800 Algebra 2 in TB2.
I am currently supervising two PhD students: Emily Hall and Hongyi Huang.