Maryam Mirzakhani, 1977-2017

Maryam Mirzakhani WWP

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An Iranian mathematician and the first woman to win the Fields Medal.



Maryam Mirzakhani was born in Tehran, Iran. She aspired to become a writer while attending the girls-only Tehran Farzanegan School, but her fascination with mathematics eventually led her to become a mathematician.

In her junior and senior years of high school, she was awarded the gold medal for mathematics in the Iranian National Olympiad.

At 17, she scored 41 out of 42 points at the International Mathematical Olympiad and became the first Iranian woman to win first place. The following year, Mirzakhani and Roya Beheshti Zavareh became the first women to participate in the Iranian National Mathematical Olympiad, where she won the gold medal (and Zavareh the silver medal). That same year, she won two gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad and made history as the first Iranian to achieve a perfect score.

After high school, she studied mathematics at the Sharif University of Technology and then moved to the US to continue her studies. In 2004, after receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard University, she served as a research fellow at the Clay Mathematics Institute and a professor at Princeton University. In 2009, she became a professor at Stanford University.

Mirzakhani specialized in theoretical mathematics, focusing her research on moduli spaces, hyperbolic geometry, Teichmüller theory, symplectic geometry, and Ergodic theory, and identifying the geometric dynamic and complexities of curved surfaces like spheres, amoebas, and doughnut shapes. Her original work has contributed to other science fields, including theoretical physics, engineering, and material science.

In 2014, she proved that the moduli space (a geometric space whose points represent algebro-geometric objects) is regular and not irregular or fractal.

Later that year, she was awarded the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, for her “outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces.” She was the first woman and Iranian to receive the award.

In 2017, at 40, she died after a long battle with breast cancer.

Fields Medal: Maryam Mirzakhani

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“The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers.”

“The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers.”

Fun Facts

  • She married Jan Vondrák, a Czech theoretical computer scientist and applied mathematician. They have one daughter.
  • In 1998, she was one of few people to survive a bus accident in an incident that was considered a national tragedy in Iran.
  • She was a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
  • She co-authored the book Elementary Number Theory, Challenging Problems.
  • After her death, various Iranian newspapers and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani broke the taboo and published a photograph of her without a headcover.
  • The International Council for Science declared her birthday, May 12, as International Women in Mathematics Day.
  • Various places were named in her honor, including the theater and library at Farzanegan High school, the library in the College of Mathematics of the Sharif University of Technology, and a conference hall in the city of Isfahan.
  • The Mirzakhani Society at the University of Oxford, founded in her honor, is a society for women and non-binary students studying Mathematics.
  • The asteroid 321357 Mirzakhani was named in her honor.
  • The Breakthrough Prize Foundation's Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize is given in honor of outstanding women in mathematics.
  • On International Day of Women and Girls in STEM of 2020, she was honored by the UN as one of seven female scientists, dead or alive, who have shaped the world.
  • "Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani" is a documentary film that follows her life and work.

Awards

  • The International Mathematical Olympiad Gold medal (1994, 1995)
  • The AMS Blumenthal Award (2009)
  • The AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics (2013)
  • The Simons Investigator Award (2013)
  • The Clay Research Award (2014)
  • The Fields Medal (2014)

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Fields Medal: Maryam Mirzakhani

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