Frank Kelly (mathematician)
British mathematician

Francis Patrick Kelly, CBE, FRS (born 28 December 1950) is Professor of the Mathematics of Systems at the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He served as Master of Christ's College, Cambridge from 2006 to 2016.
Kelly's research interests are in random processes, networks and optimisation, especially in very large-scale systems such as telecommunication or transportation networks. In the 1980s, he worked with colleagues in Cambridge and at British Telecom's Research Labs on Dynamic Alternative Routing in telephone networks, which was implemented in BT's main digital telephone network. He has also worked on the economic theory of pricing to congestion control and fair resource allocation in the internet. From 2003 to 2006 he served as Chief Scientific Advisor to the United Kingdom Department for Transport.
Kelly was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1989. In December 2006 he was elected 37th Master of Christ's College, Cambridge. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to mathematical science.
Awards
1979 Davidson Prize of the University of Cambridge
1989 Guy Medal in Silver of the Royal Statistical Society
1989 Fellow of the Royal Society
1992 Lanchester Prize of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
1997 Naylor Prize of the London Mathematical Society
2001 Honorary D.Sc.
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