Rate My Professor Helen Byrne

Helen Byrne is Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Oxford’s Mathematical Institute and a Professorial Fellow in Mathematics at Keble College. She holds a BA/MA from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the development and analysis of mathematical and computational models that describe biomedical systems, with particular application to the growth and treatment of solid tumours, wound healing and tissue engineering.

Byrne previously held positions at the University of Bath, UMIST and the University of Nottingham, where she was promoted to Professor of Applied Mathematics in 2003 and directed the Centre for Mathematical Medicine and Biology from 1999 to 2011. She joined Oxford in 2011. She has received the 2019 Leah Edelstein-Keshet Prize from the Society for Mathematical Biology and was appointed a Fellow of the Society in 2021. In 2025 she was awarded the London Mathematical Society Naylor Prize and Lectureship in Applied Mathematics. She has held roles including Director of Equality and Diversity in the MPLS Division at Oxford and serves on various advisory committees. Her selected publications include work on multiparameter persistent homology in tumours and models of tumour growth and angiogenesis appearing in journals such as PNAS and PLOS Computational Biology.