James Sneyd studied at King's High School from 1975-1979.

James was School Dux in 1979. He was awarded the King's High School Old Boys’ Association prize for “All Round Merit” and the Form 7 Mathematics Prize.

James was captain of the Hockey First XI (nicknamed Sneyd’s Army). Selection for the Otago U17 Representative Team in 1978 and 1979 was followed by the awarding of a School Hockey Blue in these years. James had learnt the Violin from an early age and was a very competent player. In the 70’s King's provided fairly limited musical opportunities.

James was born into a medical family and spent his childhood and teenage years in Dunedin. James initially was studying medicine, however, he included Mathematics in his Medical programme and some inspirational teaching caused him to changed his major to include Mathematics. His interest in music continued and he played around the town with some small jazz groups. I believe his classical music training was good enough for him to try out for the National Orchestra. On completion of his studies at the University of Otago, James applied for the top five US graduate schools for Mathematical Biology. After being offered places at all of them he chose New York University. New York also interested him because of its strong base in Jazz music. He took time to play in some jazz bands there and listen to some of his jazz heroes.

James completed his Thesis at New York and was immediately offered a tenure position at UCLA. He was able to negotiate a delayed start and finally went to Oxford to spend a year with the man he looked up to, Jim Murray.

Once at UCLA he began his productive and renowned modelling and analysis of Intracellular and Intercellular Calcium Dynamics. Over 25 years, with co-authors and students, he has written approximately 100 papers on various aspects of Calcium Dynamics. James returned to New Zealand in 1994. taking up a lectureship at the University of Canterbury.

In 1998 James received an offer from the University of Michigan that was too good to turn down, and relocated with his young family to the US. However, almost immediately they realised that they really did prefer life in New Zealand. This time, James returned to Massey Albany and then in 2002 succeeded John Butcher as Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Auckland where he is still working with prolific research output and supervising dozens of graduate students. A few of his many research areas have been: Asthma and the Lung. How do lungs work, and what causes Asthma? Saliva secretion - How is saliva secreted? What controls electrical bursting in GnRH Neurons? What role does calcium play? How is this related to hormone secretion? …

James is an avid Jazz Violinist who has, since returning to Auckland, played in a number of professional jazz groups. One playing “Gypsy music” with vibrant Gypsy swing and Flamenco Rumba beat. Another band plays Cuban music with its roots stretching back to African Tribal music and to the French and Spanish classical and folk traditions.