Pioneering string theory (Image: Keith Heppell/Cambridge News)

The physicist follows Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking into the Lucasian chair of mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

Congratulations. How did it feel when you heard the news?

I was very pleasantly surprised – but also overawed. This is a position that has had some extraordinary incumbents. It is loaded with a history that means I have an awful lot to live up to.

What plans do you have for the role?

For a long time I’ve been involved in the interface of elementary particle physics and general relativity, string theory in …