Colva Roney-Dougal received a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London, in 2001, following which she held postdoctoral positions in Sydney and St Andrews. She has been a lecturer at St Andrews since 2005 and was appointed to Senior Lecturer in 2010. Her research on the classification of primitive permutation groups has been turned into highly-used databases in MAGMA and GAP. In addition, she is heavily involved in the popularisation of mathematics, and in this capacity is a regular presence on Radio 4's 'In Our Time' with Melvyn Bragg, as well as other national radio shows.