Dr Scott Harper MMath PhD

Dr Scott Harper

School of Mathematics
Assistant Professor in Algebra
125th Anniversary Fellow

Contact details

Email
s.harper.3@bham.ac.uk
Address
School of Mathematics
Watson Building
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Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Scott Harper is an Assistant Professor in the School of Mathematics and one of the newly appointed 125th Anniversary Fellows. His general area of research is group theory: the mathematical study of symmetry. This research has recently funded by an EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. Scott enjoys communicating his research to a wide audience, and his presentation in the Houses of Parliament at STEM for Britain won the Gold Medal.

For more information, see his .

Qualifications

  • PhD in Mathematics, University of Bristol, 2019
  • MMath in Mathematics, University of St Andrews, 2015

Research

Scott's research is in group theory, and his current interests include generating sets and subgroup structure of abstract groups, and derangements and bases of permutation groups. His work connects with representation theory, geometric group theory, Lie theory and combinatorics. He is also interested in proof formalisation, mathematics education and the philosophy of mathematical practice.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Harper, S 2021, . Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol. 2286, Springer.

Article

Fusari, M, Harper, S & Spiga, P 2025, '', Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society.

Harper, S & Liebeck, MW 2025, '', Archiv der Mathematik, vol. 124, pp. 365–375.

Cameron, P, Craven, D, Dorbidi, HR, Harper, S & Sambale, B 2024, '', Journal of Algebra, vol. 660, pp. 345-372.

Harper, S 2024, '', Journal of the London Mathematical Society, vol. 109, no. 6, e12935.

Harper, S 2023, '', Forum of Mathematics, Sigma, vol. 11, e70.

Bleak, C, Harper, S & Skipper, R 2023, '', Israel Journal of Mathematics.

Harper, S 2022, '', Archiv der Mathematik, vol. 118, pp. 231–237.

Harper, S 2021, '', Journal of Algebra, vol. 578, pp. 319-355.

Burness, T, Guralnick, R & Harper, S 2021, '', Annals of Mathematics, vol. 193, no. 2, pp. 619-687.

Harper, S & Lucchini, A 2020, '', Algebraic Combinatorics, vol. 3.

Burness, T & Harper, S 2020, '', Israel Journal of Mathematics, vol. 239.

Donoven, C & Harper, S 2020, '', Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, vol. 52.

Bamberg, J, Glasby, S, Harper, S & Praeger, C 2020, '', Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, vol. 27.

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Harper, S 2024, . in CM Campbell, MR Quick, EF Robertson, CM Roney-Dougal & DI Stewart (eds), Groups St Andrews 2022 in Newcastle. 1 edn, London Mathematical Society Lecture Notes Series, vol. 496, Cambridge University Press, pp. 74-117.