MPhil Pure Mathematics

By undertaking an MPhil Pure Mathematics at Essex, you have the opportunity to study areas such as semigroup theory, group theory (especially presentations), and aspects of discrete mathematics, for example, graph theory. We have a number of staff with expertise in these areas who are willing to supervise research students, and you are invited to contact our department to discuss potential research areas.

Our staff are strongly committed to research and teaching. They have published several well-regarded text books and are world leaders in their individual specialisms, with their papers appearing in learned journals such as; Linear Algebra and its Applications, Journal of Discrete Algorithms, Semigroup Forum, Acta Arithmetica, and Electronic Journal of Combinatorics.

Our Department of Mathematical Sciences is genuinely innovative and student-focused. Our research groups are working on a broad range of collaborative areas tackling real-world issues. Here are a few examples:

• Our data scientists carefully consider how not to lie, and how not to get lied to with data. Interpreting data correctly is especially important because much of our data science research is applied directly or indirectly to social policies, including health, care and education.
• We do practical research with financial data (for example, assessing the risk of collapse of the UK’s banking system) as well as theoretical research in financial instruments such as insurance policies or asset portfolios.
• We also research how physical processes develop in time and space. Applications of this range from modelling epilepsy to modelling electronic cables.
• Our optimisation experts work out how to do the same job with less resource, or how to do more with the same resource.
• Our pure maths group are currently working on two new funded projects entitled ‘Machine learning for recognising tangled 3D objects’ and ‘Searching for gems in the landscape of cyclically presented groups’.
• We also do research into mathematical education and use exciting technologies such as electroencephalography or eye tracking to measure exactly what a learner is feeling. Our research aims to encourage the implementation of ‘the four Cs’ of modern education, which are critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.