Ian Griffiths obtained his doctorate at the University of Oxford. He subsequently completed postdoctoral positions at Durham and Princeton University before become a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Oxford. His research accomplishments include modelling the performance of water filters for developing countries, which now serve more than 150,000 people, and producing mathematical models that are used in the design of Samsung and Huawei mobile phone screens. He is now a Professor of Industrial Mathematics at Oxford and the Janet Dyson Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford.