Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics

Our college was named after the Scottish mathematician Mary Somerville, and we maintain a strong a record in the subject.

Most undergraduates who come up to read Mathematics or one of the joint subjects will have done two Mathematics A-levels, but a few of our students have done only one. Any other A-level subjects can be combined with Mathematics. It is not necessary to have a Computer Science A-level to read for a degree involving computer science.

Teaching

In the first year almost all your tutorials will be in College, as are about half of the tutorials in subsequent years. Lectures are held in the Mathematical Institute or the Computer Science Department, both of which are only a few minutes’ walk from Somerville. 

Somerville has two Tutors in Maths, one Tutor in Statistics, and one full time Lecturer in Computer Science. Professor Dan Ciubotaru’s research is in representation theory, especially in unitary representations of reductive Lie groups and Hecke algebras in the framework of the local Langlands correspondence. In 2017, he won a University teaching award for his undergraduate teaching. Professor Renaud Lambiotte is responsible for tutorials in Applied Mathematics. He has a background in statistical physics, but currently works at the interface between network science, data science and dynamical systems. Associate Professor Robert Davies is a statistical geneticist who studies how statistical methods can be applied to large genetics datasets for the purposes of prediction and inference. 

Dr Quentin Miller is our Lecturer in Computer Science, whose research interests include the design and implementation of programming languages, and language support for parallel processing. He is also currently developing software tools for creating electronic editions of medieval manuscripts.

Further details of the syllabus can be found on the websites for Maths, Computer Science, and Statistics.

Community

We usually admit ten to twelve undergraduates each year to read either Maths, Maths & Statistics, Maths & Computer Science, or Computer Science. 

Somerville also maintains a healthy community of postgraduate community, whose research looks at both methodological questions, such as graph clustering and temporal networks, as well as very practical ones, usually in collaboration with other departments or industry. For example, Professor Lambiotte is currently supervising two students from the Oxford Internet Institute who are looking to understand how news events shape the structure of Wikipedia and to better comprehend how different discourses on climate change interact in online media respectively.

We are also enriched by the work of fascinating early-career researchers such as Priya Subramanian. Priya is a Hooke Fellow at the Mathematics Institute and a Junior Research Fellow in Somerville currently developing new mathematical tools to describe and analyse soft matter and complex fluids.

Next Steps and Notable Alumni

Undergraduates go on from these degrees to many different careers, but among the most popular are accountancy, actuarial work, research, computing and teaching. Somerville emeritus Hilary Ockendon has had a stellar career, which you can read about here.