Charles "Nick" Corfield is a mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

, computer programmer, and founder of several startup companies in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

, most notably Frame Technology Corp. in 1986, which was acquired by Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...

 in 1995. While at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, Charles wrote the original version of the desktop publishing

Desktop publishing

Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...

 application FrameMaker

FrameMaker

Adobe FrameMaker is a document processor for the production and manipulation of large structured documents. It is produced by Adobe Systems. Although FrameMaker has evolved slowly in recent years, it maintains a strong following among professional technical writers.- Overview :FrameMaker has more...

, which was the main product of the company he soon co-founded. An undergraduate at St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....

, he received his bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 in mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 and physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

 from the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 in 1982. In 1996 he donated £2.5m http://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/friends/newsletters/news1/ to help fund Cambridge University's Centre for Mathematical Sciences

Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge)

The Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge houses the university's Faculty of Mathematics, the Isaac Newton Institute, and the Betty and Gordon Moore Library. It is situated on Wilberforce Road, formerly a St...

. The Sunday Times Rich List

Sunday Times Rich List

The Sunday Times Rich List is a list of the 1,000 wealthiest people or families in the United Kingdom, updated annually in April and published as a magazine supplement by British national Sunday newspaper The Sunday Times since 1989...

 estimates his wealth at over £100m.

He is also a mountain climber, having summitted Mount Everest

Mount Everest

Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...

 and conducted studies of the effects of high altitude on human physiology

Physiology

Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

.

Charles is also an ultrarunner. In 2007, he placed third at the Leadville Trail 100

Leadville Trail 100

Leadville Trail 100 Ultramarathon is an ultramarathon held annually on trails and dirt roads near Leadville, Colorado, through the heart of the Rocky Mountains. First run in 1983, runners in the race climb and descend , with elevations ranging between 9,200-12,620 feet...

, which is one of the hardest runs in the country, with a time of 19 hours and 42 minutes, in his first ever 100-mile run.

In 2009, St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....

opened Corfield Court, named in recognition of the significant donations Charles had made to the College over the years.

External links

• http://www.speechrecognition.net/word_docs/int1002_sandcherry_corfield.doc
• http://classic.mountainzone.com/everest/98/team.html
• http://classic.mountainzone.com/everest/99/south/disp5-19terry.html