Iran Press/Iran news: Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University, is the first woman as well as the first Iranian to be awarded the Fields Medal in 2014, known as "Nobel Prize of mathematics", since the award was established in 1936.
July 14, a week ago marked the sixth anniversary of the death of Maryam Mirzakhani, the prominent Iranian mathematician
Mirzakhani greatly contributed to mathematics
Biography
Mirzakhani was born in Tehran, Iran in 1977. Her childhood dream of becoming a writer was replaced by another passion: maths. As a high school junior, she was among the first Iranian women to qualify for the International Mathematical Olympiads, where she won two gold medals.
Related news: 'New Frontiers Prize' named after Iranian famed mathematician
In 1994 despite the fact that Iran's International Mathematical Olympiad team had never fielded a girl, Mirzakhani, when was 17, and Beheshti made to the Iranian math Olympiad team. Mirzakhani's score on the Olympiad test earned her a gold medal. The following year, she returned and achieved a perfect score. Here then Mirzakhani emerged with a deep love of mathematics.
After graduating from the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, she moved to the United States where she worked under the guidance of Fields Medal recipient Curtis McMullen. She received her PhD from Harvard in 2004. In 2009, she became a professor of mathematics at Stanford University in California.
Her research interests include Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry.
Mirzakhani in 1990s with Iran's scientific olympiad team
Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman and first Iranian to win the Fields Medal, often described as the rough equivalent of a Nobel prize for mathematicians, died of metastatic breast cancer on July 14 at the age of 40. She had been a professor at Stanford University since 2008.
Mirzakhani is greatly revered as a great scientific figure
Mirzakhani's legacy
Described as one of the greatest mathematicians of her generation, several mathematics prizes have been named after her, including the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize and the Maryam Mirzakhani Price in Mathematics, and her birthday is commemorated by the May12 initiative which brings together events celebrating women in mathematics.
Maryam Mirzakhani's sculpture at Iran's National Library and Archive
She will be commemorated in sceintific community for her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces.
Read More:
Mirzakhani's Birthday, Woman's Day in Mathematics
The National Women in Science Festival held in Tehran
