Profile

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Christian Lawson-Perfect

    • About Me:

      I live in Whitley Bay, near Newcastle upon Tyne, with my wife, two children and two guinea pigs.

      I love making things, usually with some maths involved; visiting the beach; riding my bike; and cooking.

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      I’m disabled in a few ways: I’m colourblind, autistic, dyspraxic and have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. That makes me a wibbly-wobbly clicky-clacky fally-downy dude whose special interests don’t include the colour red.

      I’m really, really tall. That’s usually something I like about myself, except for when I can’t buy any clothes that fit, or I bang my head!

      As well as doing maths for my job, I spend a lot of my spare time doing it as a hobby, too. I’ve made loads of online toys and games with maths aspects. You might have seen the “is this prime?” game – I made that!

      I blog about maths and love talking with other maths fans. I’ve appeared on the Numberphile channel on YouTube, and organised a competition to find “the world’s most interesting mathematician” – I made a lot of new friends all over the world and learnt lots of fun new maths!

      Sometimes I make real things – I’m slowly learning how to use a 3D printer.

      I didn’t enjoy art much at school but now I’m a grown-up I love drawing, crafting or painting. I have a large collection of homemade t-shirts.

      One of my projects for 2026 is to go to the beach and make the world’s biggest aperiodic tiling. To do that, I’m going to make huge cookie cutters to stamp the aperiodic monotile shape into the sand, and recruit anyone passing by to help out.

    • My pronouns are:

      he/him

    • How I use Maths in my work:

      Most of my job involves programming, making systems for students to practise maths questions.

      As well as the maths in the questions, I have to use maths to make the system work: I have to prove that the system will give the right marks, and understand whatever maths the students write as their answers.

      I quite often have to learn new topics in maths to help lecturers write new questions for the system.

      I also have to analyse the data that we get, to answer questions like, which topics do our students need most help with? How many students submit their homework at the last minute?

    • My Work:

      I make online homework software for maths students.
      I also make sure that our teaching material can be used by everyone, no matter what disability they have.

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      I’m a digital learning software developer: I make online systems for students to do maths homework and exams.

      I have to program the system to make up maths questions and then mark their answers.

      Many of our students are disabled, so I have to make sure that everything they need to use while studying – textbooks, homework questions, slides – are made so that everyone can access them. I talk to students and staff to find out what problems they’re facing, and then come up with solutions.

      I lead the university’s disability interest group, making sure disabled people’s voices are heard.

    • My Typical Day:

      My kids usually wake me up, hopefully after 6am!

      I have breakfast, take the kids to school, then start work, usually in my home office.

      Most of my day is spent writing code, to put new features in the system or fix bugs. I usually spend an hour or two a day replying to emails or having video calls.

      I finish work at 4pm.

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      My job is quite unusual at the university: I don’t do any teaching, so I don’t really have a timetable to stick to. Problems can come up whenever, so I have to be good at working on several things at once.

      It’s not often that I start a day knowing exactly what I’m going to do. That’s quite a challenge for me!

      I get emails from people all around the world asking for help with the software I write. I sometimes have video calls, which can be very early or very late if the other person is on the other side of the world!

      I spend some time reading about problems I’m working on, to see if anyone else has solved them before. I love it when that happens!

      My best days are the ones where I can sit down and concentrate on a problem for a long time. And when it works at the end, that’s very satisfying!

    • What I'd do with the prize money:

      I’d probably make something silly and mathematical. Maybe an absolutely enormous protractor, compass and ruler set for doing huge geometrical drawings. Or a robot that can bend paperclips into graphs of mathematical functions?

    CV

    • Education:

      I went to primary school in Washington and secondary school in Newcastle upon Tyne.

      I then stayed in Newcastle and did a four-year “master of mathematics” degree at Newcastle University.

    • Qualifications:

      I have GCSEs in maths, stats, physics, biology, chemistry, history, French, German, and computing. I didn’t do English GCSE – I just couldn’t get on with it!

      I have A-Levels in maths, further maths, physics and French.

      I did a four-year “master of mathematics” degree at Newcastle University, 2004-2008.

      I started a PhD in group theory, but quickly realised that serious maths research isn’t for me.

    • Work History:

      In the summer after year 10 I worked at a computer games company. The game ended up getting one of the lowest review scores in history but I promise that’s mainly not my fault.

      While I was studying for my degree, I did some maths tutoring for school students, and volunteered at an after-school club in Newcastle to help

      Apart from that, I’ve only ever worked at Newcastle University: first as a support tutor at our “Maths-Aid” service, and then took up (invented) the job making digital learning software, which I’ve done ever since.

    • Current Job:

      Digital learning software developer (skilled)

      (the “skilled” bit means I get paid a bit more!)

    • Employer:

      Newcastle University

    • My Interview

      • How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

        wobbly maths fan

        What did you want to be after you left school?

        Some kind of robot maker. It turned out I prefer just thinking about things.

        Were you ever in trouble at school?

        I had a really tough time at school! I had autistic meltdowns and back then teachers didn't understand as much as they do now.

        If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?

        I've always envied the person who fixes my hoover. A nice, quiet job.

        Who is your favourite singer or band?

        I couldn't possibly pick one! Though John Coltrane was alright, wasn't he?

        What's your favourite food?

        A big curry with just the right amount of heat and lots of sides

        If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

        I wish I could be better at doing things instead of overthinking; be less shy; and not forget things so easily.

        Tell us a joke.

        A mathematician wakes up and sees that the end of their bed is on fire. They put the fire out, then go back to sleep. Later, they wake up again and see that their bedside table is on fire. They put the table at the end of the bed, say "now this has reduced to a problem we've already solved", and go back to sleep.

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