Maryam Mirzakhani, a Professor at Stanford, was one of four winners honored Wednesday at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul.
She was honored in 2014 and she died of breast cancer at age 40 in July 2017
Maryam Mirzakhani Becomes First Woman To Win Prestigious Fields Medal
Our Source: The Huffington Post
| By Philip Ball 
Prof. Maryam Mirzakhani
The IMU had planned to publicly announce the names on 13 August in Seoul at the International Congress of Mathematicians, but — owing presumably to a technical glitch — the page with the announcement was already live on the organization’s website in 12 August. The Wikipedia pages for the winners appeared to have been updated anonymously on the same day after 18:00 London time.
In addition to the medal itself, the Fields Institute, based in Toronto, awards each winner CAN$15,000 (US$13,700) in cash. The prizes are given to researchers aged 40 years or younger every four years. Although the prizes recognize outstanding achievement in the early stages of a career, they are also seen as an indicator of mathematicians to watch in the future.
A native of Iran, Maryam Mirzakhani is at Stanford University in California. She won for her work on “the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces.”
“Perhaps Maryam’s most important achievement is her work on dynamics,” says Curtis McMullen of Harvard University. Many natural problems in dynamics, such as the three-body problem of celestial mechanics (for example, interactions of the Sun, the Moon and Earth), have no exact mathematical solution. Mirzakhani found that in dynamical systems evolving in ways that twist and stretch their shape, the systems’ trajectories “are tightly constrained to follow algebraic laws”, says McMullen.
He adds that Mirzakhani’s achievements “combine superb problem-solving ability, ambitious mathematical vision and fluency in many disciplines, which is unusual in the modern era, when considerable specialization is often required to reach the frontier”.
Maryam Mirzakhani
| Maryam Mirzakhani | |
|---|---|
| Born | Persian: مریم میرزاخانی May 1977 (age 37) Tehran, Iran |
| Residence | California, United States |
| Nationality | Iranian[1] |
| Fields | Mathematician |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Simple geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces and the volume of the moduli space of curves (2004) |
| Doctoral advisor | Curtis T. McMullen[2][3][4] |
| Notable awards |
|
Maryam Mirzakhani (Persian: مریم میرزاخانی; born May[5] 1977) is an Iranian mathematician, and a full professor of mathematics (since 1 September 2008) at Stanford University.[6][7][8]
Her research interests include Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry.[5] In 2014, Mirzakhani became the first woman as well as the first Iranian to be awarded the Fields Medal.[9][10][11][12]
Mirzakhani found international recognition as a brilliant teenager after receiving gold medals at both the 1994 International Mathematical Olympiad (Hong Kong) and the 1995 International Mathematical Olympiad (Toronto),[13] where she was the first Iranian student to finish with a perfect score.[13][14][15]
Contents
[hide]
Education
Mirzakhani went to high school at Farzanegan, National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET), in Tehran, Iran. She obtained her B.Sc. in mathematics (1999) from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. She holds a PhD from Harvard University (2004), where she worked under the supervision of the Fields Medallist Curtis McMullen. She was also a 2004 research fellow of the Clay Mathematics Institute and a professor at Princeton University.[16]
Research work
Mirzakhani has made several contributions to the theory of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces. In her early work, Maryam Mirzakhani discovered a formula expressing the volume of a moduli space with a given genus as a polynomial in the number of boundary components. This led her to obtain a new proof for the conjecture of Edward Witten on the intersection numbers of tautology classes on moduli space as well as an asymptotic formula for the length of simple closedgeodesics on a compact hyperbolic surface. Her subsequent work has focused on Teichmuller dynamics of moduli space. In particular, she was able to prove the long-standing conjecture that William Thurston‘s earthquake flow on Teichmüller space is ergodic.[17]
Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal in 2014 for “her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces”.[18]
Personal life
Her husband is Jan Vondrak, a theoretical computer scientist. They have a daughter named Anahita.[19][20]
Awards and honours
- Fields Medal 2014[9][21][22]
- Plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM 2014)
- Clay Research Award 2014[23]
- The 2013 AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics. “Presented every two years by the American Mathematical Society, the Satter Prize recognizes an outstanding contribution to mathematics research by a woman in the preceding six years. The prize was awarded on Thursday, 10 January 2013, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego.”[24]
- AMS Blumenthal Award 2009[24]
- Clay Mathematics Institute Research Fellow 2004[25]
- Harvard Junior Fellowship Harvard University, 2003[citation needed]
- Merit fellowship Harvard University, 2003[citation needed]
- IPM Fellowship The Institute for theoretical Physics and Mathematics, Tehran, Iran, 1995–99[citation needed]
- Invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010, on the topic of “Topology and Dynamical Systems & ODE”[26]
References
- Jump up^ Mirzakhani, Maryam. “Curriculum Vitae”. Archived from the original on 24 November 2005. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
- Jump up^ Maryam Mirzakhani at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Jump up^ “Mirzakhani Curriculum Vitae”. Princeton University. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- Jump up^ Jonathan, Webb (2014). “First female winner for Fields maths medal”. BBC News. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
- ^ Jump up to:a b “Curriculum Vitæ, Maryam Mirzakhani (older version, at CMI)”. Archived from the original on 24 November 2005. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- Jump up^ Maryam Mirzakhani (2007). “Weil-Petersson volumes and intersection theory on the moduli space of curves”. Journal of the American Mathematical Society. doi:10.1090/S0894-0347-06-00526-1.
- Jump up^ Maryam Mirzakhani (2006). “Simple geodesics and Weil-Petersson volumes of moduli spaces of bordered Riemann surfaces”. Inventiones mathematicae. doi:10.1007/s00222-006-0013-2.
- Jump up^ “Stanford Report, 9 April 2008 – Report of the President to the Board of Trustees”. Stanford University. 9 April 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Ball, Philip (2014). “Iranian is first woman to nab highest prize in maths: Maryam Mirzakhani is among four young researchers to win Fields Medals, awarded every four years”. Nature.doi:10.1038/nature.2014.15686.
- Jump up^ “IMU Prizes 2014”. International Mathematical Union. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- Jump up^ Mathis-Lilley, Ben (8 August 2014). “A Woman Has Won the Fields Medal, Math’s Highest Prize, for the First Time”. Slate.com. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
- Jump up^ Polo, Susana. “Maryam Mirzakhani Becomes First Woman to Earn Fields Medal for Mathematics in Its 78 Year History”. The Mary Sue. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Maryam Mirzakhani’s results at the International Mathematical Olympiad
- Jump up^ “Iranian woman wins maths’ top prize”. New Scientist. 12 August 2014. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
- Jump up^ ‘Brilliant’ minds honored: Maryam Mirzakhani (USA Today 2005)
- Jump up^ Maryam Mirzakhani from the Scopus bibliographic database
- Jump up^ Mirzakhani, M. (8 July 2010). “Ergodic Theory of the Earthquake Flow”. International Mathematics Research Notices. doi:10.1093/imrn/rnm116.
- Jump up^ “IMU Prizes 2014 citations”. International Mathematical Union. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- Jump up^ “A Tenacious Explorer of Abstract Surfaces”, simonsfoundation.org; accessed 13 April 2014.
- Jump up^ Jan Vondrak profile, ibm.com; accessed 13 April 2014.
- Jump up^ “IMU Prizes 2014”. International Mathematical Union.
- Jump up^ “Médaille Fields de mathématiques : une femme promue pour la première fois”. Lemonde.fr. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
- Jump up^ “2014 Clay Research Awards”.
- ^ Jump up to:a b American Mathematical Society; retrieved 6 January 2009
- Jump up^ “Interview with Research Fellow Maryam Mirzakhani”. Oxford University. 2008.
- Jump up^ “ICM Plenary and Invited Speakers since 1897”. International Congress of Mathematicians. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
Categories: Americas, Highlight, Iran, Mathematics, Muslim Celebrities, Muslim Females, Muslim Heritage, Video, Women, Women In islam, Women Rights, Women's right
Quoting Guardian UK
Finally, after more than 50 male winners, a Fields Medal goes to a woman mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani. If you tossed a coin 51 times, your probability of 50 tails then a head would be less than one in 2,250,000,000,000,000; but nowadays close to half of maths undergraduates are women. That is a pretty stark juxtaposition. Does Mirzakhani’s success mark a turning point in the battle for women to gain more recognition in mathematics?
All Fields medallists are outstanding in the literal sense of the word – their achievements surpass almost everybody else’s. Their confluence of raw ability, personality, upbringing, education, support and mentoring, as well as simple good fortune, is right out in the far tail of the distribution of such things. Data is scarce in this rarefied region, and hypotheses are hard to test; so, too, is the influence of the culture of their chosen field. Nevertheless, such astronomical odds of a woman winning the medal are disturbing, and they are just an extreme point of a range of evidence that women are underrepresented in mathematics at many levels.
An intellectually honest (albeit politically loaded) starting point is the question: is innate talent (whatever that means) even slightly different between women and men, perhaps especially at the very top? Even in ideal circumstances it would be very hard to answer – perhaps neural imaging techniques will eventually help – but even if there is a difference, detecting it is immensely complicated by the social and cultural setting.
For example, there is evidence that women with excellent mathematical skills are likely also to have excellent verbal skills, which is less so for their male counterparts; and so they have a greater range of opportunities in life, and may leave the quantitative careers to the men. In which case, does a predominance of men in quantitative jobs indicate a difference in quantitative ability? There are other social factors, too. Women can bear children, men cannot, and the demands of parenthood conflict directly with the need for the sustained concentration that is so often crucial in cracking a mathematical problem. If, as seems likely, this impacts more on women than on men, how does that affect our view?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/13/woman-wins-fields-medal-odds-maryam-mirzakhani
Her name and her origin from Iran would very strongly suggest that she is a Muslim.
Who would have thought that the first woman to win the highest mathematics award would be a Muslim?
What a disappointment for Islamophobes and Mullahs!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GhbMhQLQ_g&w=470&h=275%5D
Great work. This tells that given opportunities no one can stay behind. It is the oppression of ideas and banning thinking which is a problem.
Well done Mirzakhani….you are a gem from our brother country Iran…!
Maryam can well be a Jewish or a Christian name. But hey she is an Iranian, more or less from my nook of the world, and so I will say God bless her for this achievement! In fact this is what came to mind when I first heard of the news:
اللھم زد فزد
Congrats my sister!
Salaam,
A noteworthy news clip link is given below:
http://www.nation.com.pk/columns/05-Aug-2014/tenu-kaafir-kaafir-aakhday
Munawar Arain
Never mind whether she is a Muslimah or lady of any other faith, she has done well and deserves all praise. Well done Mirzakhani, Maryam Mirzakhani .
Heartiest Congratulations!
With warm regards + best wishes
Sameen Ahmed KHAN
Engineering Department
Salalah College of Technology,
Salalah, Sultanate of OMAN. http://SameenAhmedKhan.webs.com/