Biography
Jacob Lund graduated from the University of Cape Town (UCT) in March 2024 with a BSc in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics and is currently in the process of completing a BSc Honours in Mathematics at UCT.
Jacob has taken on mathematical projects in a broad collection of fields, ranging from categorical topological, to quantum complexity, to classical chaos. He shares his enthusiasm for mathematics by teaching, and has run mathematical thinking workshops for first years, with the aim of breaking down “maths-anxiety”.
He has received the class medal for all core mathematics courses during his undergraduate, and all applied mathematics courses since second year, and was awarded the Harry Crossley Research Fellowship for his honours year, based on his research potential. His third-year project “The early universe as an open quantum system: decoherence and complexity” was published in the Journal of High Energy Physics.
Jacob is also a co-creator and moderator of isiXhosa.click, a free online open-source dictionary which has received a grant as a part of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources’ Digital Humanities Open Educational Resources Champions initiative.
In his free time, Jacob can usually be found on a mountain or in the climbing gym.
At Oxford, Jacob hopes explore the nexus of pure and applied maths. He is particularly interested in on how insights from traditionally pure fields can be used to solve pressing problems.