Maryam Mirzakhani, a Harvard-educated mathematician and professor at Stanford University in California, was one of four winners announced by the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) at its conference in Seoul on Wednesday.
"This is a great honour. I will be happy if it encourages young female scientists and mathematicians," Mirzakhani said in a press release from Stanford University where she is a professor.
"I am sure there will be many more women winning this kind of award in coming years," she added.
The award recognised Mirzakhani's sophisticated and highly original contributions to the fields of geometry and dynamical systems, particularly in understanding the symmetry of curved surfaces such as spheres.
Although her work is considered "pure mathematics" and is mostly theoretical, it has implications for physics and quantum field theory, as well as for the study of prime numbers and cryptography.
"Fluent in a remarkably diverse range of mathematical techniques and disparate mathematical cultures, she embodies a rare combination of superb technical ability, bold ambition, far-reaching vision, and deep curiosity," the ICM said in a statement.
Mirzakhani was born in Tehran in 1977 and earned her PhD in 2004 from Harvard University.
She has previously won the 2009 Blumenthal Award for the Advancement of Research in Pure Mathematics and the 2013 Satter Prize of the American Mathematical Society.
The Fields Medal is given out every four years, often to multiple winners who should not be aged over 40.
The other three winners this year were Artur Avila of France, Manjul Bhargava of Princeton University in New Jersey, and Martin Hairer of the University of Warwick in Britain.
With no Nobel Prize awarded for mathematics, the Fields Medal is seen as the top global award for the discipline.
The medals were presented by South Korea's first woman president, Park Geun-Hye.
"I congratulate all the winners, with special applause for Maryam Mirzakhani, whose drive and passion have made her the first woman to win a Fields Medal," Park said.
Before Wednesday's ceremony all 52 previous recipients had been men.
Born and raised in Tehran, Mirzakhani initially dreamed of becoming a writer, but by the time she started high school her affinity for solving mathematical problems and working on proofs had shifted her sights.
"It is fun,it's like solving a puzzle or connecting the dots in a detective case," she said. "I felt that this was something I could do, and I wanted to pursue this path."
Although it usually involves abstract concepts of nature that might not have an immediately obvious application, Mirzakhani said she enjoyed pure mathematics because of the elegance and longevity of the questions she studies.
"It is like being lost in a jungle and trying to use all the knowledge that you can gather to come up with some new tricks, and with some luck you might find a way out," she said.
Mirzakhani became known on the international mathematics scene as a teenager, winning gold medals at both the 1994 and 1995 International Math Olympiads -- finishing with a perfect score in the latter competition.
In 2008 she became a professor of mathematics at Stanford, where she lives with her husband and three-year-old daughter.
"On behalf of the entire Stanford community, I congratulate Maryam on this incredible recognition, the highest honour in her discipline, the first ever granted to a woman," said university president John Hennessy.
COMMENTS (35)
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She is married to a Christian , she is no more a muslim
Great job
@goggi (Lahore): Fully agree with you that Highly educated Iranians living in western world are very cautious and proud of their ancient and real peaceful Zoroastrianism religion and many r converting back to it.And they are convinced the Islam was responsible for destruction of Zoroastrianism religion
@Fazal Gilani: After that initial burst of enthusiasm, what you really meant to say was that you wanted to congratulate her for her genius, on her winning the Fields,which would be an inspiration to all, including Muslim women.
@Fawad true, western media propoganda machine is very powerful in indoctrinating the mule masses and keeping them ignorant. Also once monkey leaderhip in Pakistan is thrown out for good then it will be able to focus on improving the education including mathematical skills of the country, the slave nation has to come out its slavery first.
@Fawad . Obviously, you are the one spouting ignorant nonsense. It is because of Harvard, Sandford, the USA and being a Christian country and democratic one that gave the freedom for her to flourish since the year 2003. If you don't believe that than I believe you would believe that Iran would have, could have, may have sent the first man to the moon in before July 1969 because Iran and Persia is an older civilization and America is just a bunch of infidel Cowboys waging a war of terror on innocent Muslims the world over.
I completely agree with the comments here that Muslims need to get out of their obsession with religion and embrace learning and freedom.
However, there are are number of ignorant assumptions being thrown around here that are false. Iran has significantly more opportunities for women than most Muslim countries, even though obviously it is a very repressive regime in many ways. Maryam Mirzakhani was already a talented mathematician in her native Iran. She did all of her schooling in Iran until she went to the US for a PhD at Harvard. She got her BSc at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran in 1999. She won golds at the International Math Olympiads in 1994 (Hong Kong) and 1995 (Toronto) as a teenager when she was growing up in Tehran.
Please take the opportunity to do some basic research before spouting ignorant nonsense. Her achievements in the US are phenomenal but clearly they are not only because of Harvard or Stanford.
@Tooba I meant for science. Ofc there are others. Mostly for peace but that's controversial.
But you got the point I was trying to make.
@ET
Give me "FREEDOM OF SPEECH". Why did you edit my comment. Here it is again:
So now there are two Muslim nobel prize winners i.e. Ahmed Zewail and Maryam
Now publish it .
She is not just Iranian-born. She is an Iranian national.
@Sudhanshu Swami: Congratulations and thanks, Thumbs up
If Mullahs had not taken over Iran way back, this country of very proud, intelligent and smart people had become Switzerland of East. The great poet Iqbal predicted it when he compared Tehran with Geneva. Mullah rule is a curse which destroys nations. Beware Pakistanis, a fake revolutionary thug and an idiot are following footsteps of Iranian Mullahs. Only democracy and freedom gives great geniuses.
@goggi: @Weirdity @Lodi I respect all of yours opinions, I recommend all of you to read this recent post published on my blog by Muhammad may it gives you a clear picture of what we think on her achievement .......... http://fazalgilani.com/maryam-mirzakhani-achievement/ You guys are welcome to comment there as well to discuss on it further
@Fazal Gilani and @Lodi; and @ Ahmed: Get rid of the idea that she is Muslim first and everything else second. That is what has gotten the 55 plus Muslim countries and Muslims of the world in the mess that they are in and have devolved the planet Earth into chaos. As pointed out by others, this Iranian born American mathematician would not have amounted to hardly anything of her God-given innate potential as a Muslima and an Iranian both, had it not been for Harvard, Stanford, and especially the United States of America. Can any Muslim dispute that, please? And how is it that a mathematician of Iranian descent was glorified in this article but an obviously Indian descent mathematician was ignored? See the disparity to put it kindly?
@Ahmed: And, yet, Sir, the same "Muslim", whom you so rapturously praise, do not care two hoots about you (a "Muslim") and your beloved Pakistan. Just visit the UAE (where I live), Iran or worse still Saudi Arabia, and experience for yourself how they treat "Muslims" from Pakistan. I wish you would give up your parochialism which has been a major cause of our downward slide since decades into the abyss of the stone age. Pakistani fanatics kill Muslims (!!) in their own country, let alone minorities of other faiths for whom Pakistan has become a nightmare. You can do a big service to your country - and also to the Muslim faith - by not dragging in religion into everything you see or do or breathe. If you still don't understand or see my point, I cannot help you anymore, but Pakistanis need to break out of their sick, madrassah mentality in a world that moving ahead in the Internet age.
It is a rare achievement. This lady really loves and lives Mathematics.
Al-Khwarizmi, the father of algebra, was Persian too. This is one of the oldest civilizations on the planet so they've produced their share of geniuses.
@ Ahmad @ Fazal Gilani
Iranians identify with their Zoroastrian roots more than Islam. You will never meet an Iranian-American who introduces themselves as Muslim first and then Iranian. They are proud of being Iranian and consider themselves superior to Arabs. Zoroaster, Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes are the sources of their pride not the Arab invaders, if you catch my drift.
@Fazal Gilani Congratulations to All Muslims for Maryam Mirzakhani,
Manjul Bhargav was also awarded the same, Congratulations to all Indians.
@Fazal Gilani: You shall hardly find Iranian women or men living in western countries, who have any association with your Arabic religion.
They regard themselves as the Aryan Europeans of Asia and perceive their neighbors, especially the Arabs, as very low-grade and inferior.
Iranians, both men and women, are the most sophisticated, modern, beloved and good integrated foreigners in the western societies.
And one thing more: they are very cautious and proud of their ancient Zoroastrianism religion!
Great job!!
@Fazal Gilani: ".It is a victory for Muslims’ women"
There is very little chance of her evolving to an extent of getting this prize if she had stayed in the "islamic" iran. If you want to bring religion into this, then a more appropriate statement would be "its a victory for christian world which allowed her space to think freely and evolve. Its a failure of the muslim world that muslim woman find victory only in the christian world".
The award going to Princeton University's Manjul Bhargava, a Canadian-American maths wizard was no surprise; although he is the first person of Indian origin, he was the hot favorite in pre-award polls among peers.
The sensational co-winner is Maryam Mirzakhani, a female Iranian mathematician who teaches at Stanford University. It is the first time a female mathematician has won the Fields medal; all 52 previous winners have been men in a field traditionally dominated by the male of the species
@Lodi It's because the whole idea is that we are first Muslims and then something else i.e. Pakistani, Iranian, American etc or even Engineer, Doctor or Economist.
Why not Pakistan makes its women like Maryam Mirzakhani...
The other medal winner Mr Bhargava are Indian born - Americans same like Maryam Mirzakhani...!! so I don't understand why the Tribune has categorically denied that fact...!!
@Fazal Gilani: Why must you always bring in religion -- are you a mullah or some religious fanatic who has a compulsion to use the word "Muslim" in everything he sees or hears? The lady would have never succeeded had she not left Iran and engaged in higher studies at Harvard where she got official encouragement and recognition which would have long been denied to her in her motherland. Women, in much of the Islamic world (even though Iran is a much more sophisticated and better state to live in than Saudi Arabia or, worse, Pakistan). But, in all candour, I also understand that you, Sir, are probably so sick and tired of all the bad, ugly and negative publicity that Muslims get around the world that you jump at the first opportunity to describe this hard-working and achieving lady as a "Muslim".
These are the iranians who are persecuted and exiled as well as who hates Iranian regime.
Mathematics is in-build in muslim but no forum in muslim world to prove.
Great job Maryam. I wish we had given importance to Mathematics - the mother of all sciences.