Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy (; born 26 August 1965) is a British mathematician, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford and author of popular mathematics and popular science books. He was previously a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Wadham College, Oxford and served as president of the Mathematical Association, an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) senior media fellow, and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. In 1996, he was awarded the title of distinction of Professor of Mathematics. Education and early life Du Sautoy was born in London to Bernard du Sautoy, employed in the computer industry, and Jennifer ( Deason) du Sautoy, who left the Foreign Office to raise her children. He grew up in Henley-on-Thames. His grandfather, Peter du Sautoy, was chairman of the publisher Faber and Faber, and managed the estates of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Du Sautoy was educated at Gillotts Comprehensive School and King James's Sixth Form College (now Henley College) and Wadham College, Oxford, where he was awarded a first class honours degree in mathematics. In 1991 he completed a doctorate in mathematics on discrete groups, analytic groups and Poincaré series, supervised by Dan Segal. Career and research Du Sautoy's research "uses classical tools from number theory to explore the mathematics of symmetry". Du Sautoy's academic work concerns mainly group theory and number theory. Du Sautoy is known for his work popularising mathematics, and has been named by The Independent on Sunday as one of the UK's leading scientists. He has also served on the advisory board of Mangahigh.com, an online maths game website. He is a regular contributor to the BBC Radio 4's In Our Time programme and has written for The Times and The Guardian. He has written numerous academic articles and books on mathematics, the most recent being an exploration of the current state of creativity in artificial intelligence, The Creativity Code. In a 2006 article published in Seed magazine, du Sautoy discussed the Hilbert-Pólya conjecture, a way for advances in quantum physics to provide insight into the Riemann hypothesis. Books His popular mathematics and popular science books include: The Music of the Primes Finding Moonshine Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature The Num8er My5teries: A Mathematical Odyssey Through Everyday Life What We Cannot Know The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers