Innovation Associate in Mathematics

About us

The Department of Mathematics at UCL is an internationally renowned department within one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Since its beginning, mathematics at UCL has been enhanced by its many outstanding members of staff. Indeed, two of its students (and later staff) Professor Klaus Roth (1958) and Professor Alan Baker (1970) have gone on to win the Fields Medal. Another former member of staff Professor Tim Gowers won the Fields Medal in 1998 for work he did whilst at UCL.

About the role

Applications are invited for two part-time Innovation Associate positions to work with Richard Hill and John Talbot on the project Domain Specific Documentation for Mathlib.

The aim of this project is to produce introductory online open-source guides to Lean and Mathlib in various areas of Pure Mathematics. The areas of mathematics to be covered will be chosen based on the expertise of the candidate. Each guide should appeal to graduate level mathematicians in the given area, with the aim of encouraging mathematicians who are curious about formalization into the field.

The main duties and responsibilities of the posts will be:

• Writing accessible and engaging guides to Lean and Mathlib in various areas of Mathematics using the Verso documentation tool or similar.
• Creating imaginative examples of Lean code to demonstrate the current state of Mathlib while introducing the Lean programming language to a non-expert audience of mathematicians.

The posts are available from 1/12/2025 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The posts are each funded for 100 hours in the first instance.

About you

Candidates should either have, or be working towards, a PhD in Mathematics. They will be proficient in Lean and have a good working knowledge of Mathlib.

The successful candidate is expected to be proficient in LEAN, have a good working knowledge of Mathlib in one or more areas of Mathematics and have or be working towards a PhD in Mathematics. The successful candidate should have excellent communication skills, both written and oral and have a desire to communicate about formalisation to other mathematicians.

An outstanding candidate will have made numerous contributions to Mathlib and have a PhD in Mathematics or a related field.

For a full spectrum of duties and responsibilities as well as essential, and desired criteria please refer to the Further Particulars document attached to this advert.

If you have any queries regarding the vacancy or the application process, please contact Anna Rutherford (anna.rutherford@ucl.ac.uk).

Informal enquiries may be addressed to Richard Hill (r.m.hill@ucl.ac.uk) or John Talbot (j.talbot@ucl.ac.uk).

We particularly welcome female applicants and those from an ethnic minority, as they are under-represented within UCL at this level.

Customer advert reference: B04-06674

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