Professor Brent is a leading international researcher in the design and analysis of algorithms, the theory of computation, and numerical analysis. He is the author of widely used algorithms for optimisation, solution of nonlinear equations and systems, high-precision computation of special functions, pseudo-random number generation, factorisation, information retrieval and dynamic storage allocation. His notable theoretical results include area-time bounds for digital (VLSI) circuits, and bounds on the complexity of algorithms for power series, Toeplitz systems and nonlinear equations. In the area of mathematics, he has achieved striking computational results on the distribution of primes and on zeros of the Riemann zeta-function.