Sir Simon Donaldson FRS studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he gained a first in Mathematics and a sailing blue. Subsequently he gained a DPhil under the supervision of Sir Michael Atiyah at Worcester College, Oxford. There, he wrote one of his most important papers, ‘Self-dual connections and the topology of smooth 4-manifolds’ in 1983.

He has been awarded various prizes throughout his career, notably the Fields Medal in 1986 and in 2014 he was one of the inaugural recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics which rewards significant discoveries.

Sir Simon Donaldson is currently a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London.