David Wallace was nine or ten years old when his headmaster set the school class a simple problem, outside the usual curriculum. Wallace solved it, triggering a lifelong fascination with mathematics and science. His parents supported his experiments — even tolerating the hole burnt in his bedroom floor by some caustic soda he had secretly bought for his chemistry set.

Since then, he has dedicated his life to mathematics and science. That dedication recently culminated in his appointment as the next director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge. The institute supports programmes in theoretical, basic and applied mathematics. (See CV).

Wallace is particularly looking forward to applying mathematics to environmental areas, for instance, by building models to examine factors that influence climate change. As well as the director's post at the institute, he will also serve as the N. M. Rothschild & Sons Professor of Mathematical Sciences.

After 12 years as an administrator, Wallace is very keen to return to the experimental world. “I always want to try something where I might fail,” he says. “This is one of the things that make this position so challenging and rewarding.”

His mentors, he says, always encouraged him to take on tough challenges. It's an admonition he took into his personal life as well as his career — he has completed four marathon runs. He understands the role of mentor very well: his PhD supervisor at the University of Edinburgh, he says, “taught us new techniques and inspired me in many ways”.

He has also had to grapple with sometimes competing interests, serving on a number of corporate boards while also acting as university administrator — a situation he dealt with as if solving another mathematical problem. “Seeing how everything might fit together in a bigger picture can be very useful to resolve the apparently conflicting information one sometimes faces,” he says.

He believes that instinct can sometimes be as important as logic when thinking of decisions and foresight. “You can always analyse data but in a lot of things you have to rely on instinct,” he says.

The best advice he can give to young scientists is nevertheless very straightforward. “Do what you want to do,” he says, “and take risks whenever you think it is right.”