Rob Eastaway - Christopher Zeeman Medal Winner 2016 4 October 2016

Rob is without doubt one of the leading promoters of mathematics in the UK. Rob's outreach over many years has engaged and continues to engage and inspire great numbers of diverse audiences, in particular, primary and secondary school children, and their parents. Rob is also a highly effective role model for others who wish to develop a career in the promotion of mathematics to the general public.

Rob's career of promoting mathematics began during his late teenage years with his first puzzles being published in the New Scientist and The Sunday Times. As an undergraduate at Christ's College, Cambridge (MA in Engineering Science, in Part 2 of which Rob specialised in Operational Research), Rob edited Enigmas, a collection of puzzles from the New Scientist column. From 1984-1990 Rob worked as a management consultant at Logica and subsequently Deloitte, using mathematical modelling to advise decision makers in public sector bodies and other organisations. While at Deloitte, Rob developed (with Ted Dexter and Gordon Vince) the 'Deloitte Ratings', a mathematical system for ranking international cricketers, subsequently adopted by the ICC and still used as cricket's official world rankings. During this time, Rob also had his first experience of giving maths presentations to the general public.

Rob has written and/or co-written a number of books for a range of audiences, including school children and their parents. It was the success of his first book What is a Googly?, an explanation of cricket for non-cricketers, which created the opportunity for Rob to write maths books. Notably, a copy of this book was presented by Prime Minister John Major to President George Bush (Snr) at Camp David in 1992.

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