Dame Frances Kirwan Named "Savilian Professor" at University of Oxford!

Here is some really big news: "Dame Frances Kirwan has been elected to the Savilian Professorship at the University of Oxford. Frances will be the 20th holder of the Savilian Chair (founded in 1619), and is the first woman to be elected to any of the historic chairs in mathematics."

This is a very big deal. (See the Wikipedia entry for a discussion of this professorship.)

I know Frances. (We were colleagues in the Mathematical Institute at University of Oxford, of course) She is awesome (both as a mathematician and as a person).

Frances is somebody who is well-known within mathematics but pretty much unheard of outside mathematics.