Birth: May 12, 1977
Death: July 14, 2017
Specialty: Mathematics
Major Contributions:
Won Gold Medals at the 1994 and 1995 International Math Olympiads
Recognized as one of Popular Science’s “Brilliant 10” extraordinary scientists in 2006
First female to earn the Fields Medal (Officially known as the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics)
Image: Maryeraud9/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Dr. Maryam Mirzakhani didn’t have a deep love for mathematics as a child growing up in Tehran, thinking perhaps she might become a writer. While attending the Farzanegan high school for girls she and a friend got a copy of the questions used to determine which students would represent Iran at the International Olympiad in Informatics.
Solving three of the six problems, the two friends went to their school principal demanding courses in math problem solving like the ones at the high school for boys. The principal supported the girls in their efforts and the next year the two became the first females to be part of the Iranian math Olympiad team. In 1994 Mirzakhani earned the gold medal in the Olympiad test which she followed up the next year by earning a perfect score on the test, and another gold medal.
By using these competitions to discover what she could do, she had developed a deep love of mathematics which she was able to transfer into a career in research and teaching. Earning her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Sharif University of Technology she continued her studies in the United States earning a doctorate from Harvard in 2004. Her doctoral thesis solving a decades old problem of calculating the volumes of moduli spaces of curves on objects known as Riemann surfaces was broken into three sections and each was published in prestigious mathematics journals. Further work focused on Teichmüller dynamics of moduli space and complex geodesics and their closures in moduli space.
In 2014 it was announced that Mirzakhani would be the first female recipient of the Fields Medal, considered equitable to the Nobel Prize. While she knew that this award was a great honor and hoped it encouraged more young women to pursue careers in math, she didn’t want to be seen as the face of women in mathematics – eager instead to deflect attention away from her achievements and focus on continuing her research.
Sadly, three short years later Mirzakhani passed away, but her colleagues remember her as being fearlessly ambitious in her work, for her brilliance in how she tackled problems, and for her humility.
Written by Angela Goad
Sources:
Stanford’s Maryam Mirzakhani wins Fields Medal
Biographies of Women Mathematicians: Maryam Mirzakhani
A Tenacious Explorer of Abstract Surfaces
Colleagues, friends and family gather to remember Stanford Professor Maryam Mirzakhani
See Also:
Google Scholar: Maryam Mirzakhani
International Mathematical Olympiad
Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani