Dr Richard Mycroft MA MMath PhD

• PhD in Pure Mathematics, University of Birmingham, 2010
• MA, University of Cambridge, 2010
• MMath, University of Cambridge, 2007
• BA (Hons) in Mathematics, University of Cambridge, 2006

Richard Mycroft read Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, gaining his BA (Hons) degree in 2006 and his MMath degree in 2007. Following this, he moved to the University of Birmingham to complete a PhD under the supervision of Deryk Osthus and Daniela Kühn. His thesis, submitted in 2010, was titled 'The regularity method for directed graphs and hypergraphs', with the most notable result being a proof for large tournaments of the well-known Sumner’s conjecture, which had been open since 1971.

Following the award of his PhD Richard moved to Queen Mary, University of London, where he spent a year working as a postdoctoral research assistant for Peter Keevash, with the primary focus of his research being the development of a geometric theory for perfect matchings in hypergraphs.

Richard then returned to the University of Birmingham in June 2011 to take up a lectureship in Mathematics. Since then he has continued active research in extremal graph theory, particularly relating to hypergraphs. In 2017 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer.

Semester 1

LC/LI Algebra and Combinatorics

LM Advanced Topics in Combinatorics

Richard Mycroft has acted as principal supervisor for four PhD students, and as co-supervisor for a further five PhD students. He is always keen to hear from any prospective students who are interested in PhD study in Combinatorics.

Richard’s research interests lie in the field of Combinatorics, and more specifically in the area of extremal graph theory. In particular he has worked extensively on embedding problems relating to hypergraphs, centred around the development of a geometric theory of perfect matchings in uniform hypergraphs, with multiple subsequent applications both in his own work and the work of other researchers. Other highlights of Richard's research include a random version of Sperner's theorem on antichains, a multipartite version of the Hajnal-Szemerédi theorem and a proof of the well-known Sumner's conjecture (dating to 1971) for directed trees in large tournaments.

From 2018 to 2022 Richard's programme of research is being supported by a £295k EPSRC Standard Grant for a project titled `Properties of Extremal and Random Hypergraphs'; previously his research was supported from 2015 to 2017 by a £124k EPSRC First Grant for a project titled `Embeddings in Hypergraphs'.

Since 2017 Richard has served as Academic Admissions Director for the School of Mathematics, playing a key role in undergraduate admissions activity.