Catherine Ann Hobbs (born 1968) is a British mathematician and educator working as a professor and Academic Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Environment and Computing at Coventry University. Her research focuses on applications of singularity theory to the physical sciences. She has a strong interest in science policy, particularly relating to encouraging and supporting women in STEM fields.
Early life and education
Hobbs was born in Bristol. She attended Queen Elizabeth's School in Crediton, Devon. Her father David Hobbs was an academic at the University of Exeter in mathematics education, and contributed to writing a series of influential text books for school mathematics, as part of the School Mathematics Project. These introduced many concepts of modern mathematics at school level for the first time. Her mother Rosalind Hobbs was a primary school teacher. She attended the University of Warwick 1986–1989 for her first degree, where her tutors Christopher Zeeman and Caroline Series both encouraged her to consider postgraduate study. She did a PhD 1989–1993 at the University of Liverpool supervised by Chris Gibson on applications of singularity theory in robotics.
Career
Her first academic appointment was as a teaching fellow at the University of Nottingham, 1992–1994. From 1994 she was at Oxford Brookes University, first as a lecturer then senior lecturer in 1997, then head of the Department of Mathematical Sciences from 2004, and Associate Dean for Research and Knowledge Exchange from 2007. She spent a sabbatical year at the University of Auckland in 2001. In 2010 she became head of the Department of Engineering Design and Mathematics at the University of the West of England in Bristol. She is presently Academic Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Environment and Computing at Coventry University.
From 2014–2017 Hobbs was Chair of the Committee of Heads of Departments of Mathematical Sciences in the UK (HoDoMS).
Since 2017, Hobbs has served as vice president of the London Mathematical Society. Hobbs is a member of the Executive Committee for the set-up phase of a new UK Academy of Mathematical Sciences. In 2023 Hobbs became the Honorary Education Secretary of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. Hobbs is currently on the Board of the Engineering Professors' Council.
Research
Her research interests are in applications of pure mathematics to the physical sciences. She has worked in applications of geometry to robotics, numerical computation of highly oscillatory integrals and dynamical systems.