Henry Robert Thackeray

Henry Robert Thackeray, who publishes and teaches as Henry (Maya) Thackeray, is a South African number theorist and lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Pretoria. He represented South Africa at the International Mathematical Olympiad four consecutive years (2006-2009), earning a silver medal in 2008 and honourable mentions in 2006 and 2007. He completed a PhD in mathematics at Princeton University (advised by Christopher Skinner) and returned to South Africa as a lecturer at UP, where he works on number theory and combinatorics.

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• Represented South Africa at the IMO four consecutive years (2006-2009), the first in his cohort to be listed and the team's top scorer in 2008 with a silver medal — a sustained elite-level record rather than a one-off.Jul 1, 2008
• Returned to South Africa after a Princeton PhD to lecture at the University of Pretoria — an unusual reverse-migration pattern for a Princeton-trained mathematician, suggesting a deliberate choice to build number theory in SA.Jul 1, 2021
• PhD thesis 'A Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer formula for high-weight modular forms', advised by Christopher Skinner at Princeton — places him in the arithmetic geometry/L-functions tradition.Jul 1, 2021
• Won the first-ever South African Tertiary Mathematics Olympiad with 90%, beating the national field by a wide margin, shortly after leaving school.Jan 1, 2010
• Matriculated from St Alban's College in 2009 with 10 distinctions including 100% in a subject, per Pretoria News coverage of IEB results — the school record that preceded his UP entry and Princeton trajectory.Dec 31, 2009
• Publishes as Henry (Maya) Thackeray / H.M.R. Thackeray; the Maya name is in active professional use (UP staff page, papers, teaching) rather than a legal-only alias.Jan 1, 2026
• Co-teaches WTW 115 Introduction to Mathematical Logic & Discrete Structures at UP and teaches SAMO number-theory classes, putting him at the pipeline end of SA olympiad mathematics.Jan 1, 2026
• Active in the Stellenbosch Number Theory Conference circuit (2025 speaker) — a mainstay of the South African number theory community.Jan 1, 2025