Dr Tim Burness
BSc(Warw.), MSc(Warw.), PhD(Lond.)
Current positions
Reader in Pure Mathematics
School of Mathematics
Contact
Media contact
If you are interested in speaking to this expert, contact the University’s Media & PR Team on
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. I have been Reader in Pure Mathematics and Associate Chair of the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research since 2018.
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.
Positions
University of Bristol positions
Reader in Pure Mathematics
School of Mathematics
Projects and supervisions
Thesis supervisions
On the Spread of Classical Groups
Supervisors
Publications
Selected publications
18/02/2021The classification of extremely primitive groups
International Mathematics Research Notices
On solvable factors of almost simple groups
Advances in Mathematics
Topological generation of exceptional algebraic groups
Advances in Mathematics
Recent publications
18/02/2021The classification of extremely primitive groups
International Mathematics Research Notices
The spread of a finite group
Annals of Mathematics
On solvable factors of almost simple groups
Advances in Mathematics
Base sizes for primitive groups with soluble stabilisers
Algebra and Number Theory
A note on extremely primitive affine groups
Archiv der Mathematik
Teaching
In 2020/21 I am lecturing a 4th year course in Representation Theory.
I also supervise 3rd and 4th year undergraduate projects, and I currently have two PhD students: Emily Hall and Hongyi Huang.