Stanford University’s Maryam Mirzakhani was the first and only woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal in mathematics.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Maryam Mirzakhani, 40, a renowned mathematician and Stanford University professor best known for being the first woman to receive the prestigious Fields Medal for mathematics, died Saturday, the university announced.

She had breast cancer.

The Fields Medal, often described as the mathematician’s Nobel Prize, is given every four years to no more than four mathematicians, all of whom are 40 or younger. She was named for her work on complex geometry and dynamic systems.

Ms. Mirzakhani, of Iran, received the award in Seoul, South Korea, in 2014. “This is a great honor. I will be happy if it encourages young female scientists and mathematicians,” she said at the time. “I am sure there will be many more women winning this kind of award in coming years.”

Ms. Mirzakhani — known for taking the difficult, complicated path to solve mathematical problems — studied the symmetry of curved surfaces and other theoretical concepts known as “pure mathematics.” She joined Stanford in 2008, where she was a mathematics professor until her death.

“Mirzakhani was fascinated by the geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces — spheres, doughnut shapes and even amoebas,” the university said in a news release. “Despite the highly theoretical nature of her work, it has implications in physics, quantum mechanics and other disciplines outside of math. She was ambitious, resolute and fearless in the face of problems others would not, or could not, tackle.”

She attended an all-girls high school in her native Tehran, where she competed for Iran’s International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She gained international recognition in 1994 as a gold-medal recipient and again in 1995, after achieving a perfect score and two gold medals.

She went on to college at Sharif University in Tehran, and then graduate school at Harvard University, where she was guided by Fields Medal winner Curtis McMullen, who once said she was filled with “fearless ambition.”

At Harvard, she was known for her persistence and intense questioning, despite a language barrier, according to Stanford. “Her questions came in English. Her notes were jotted in Farsi.”

Her 2004 dissertation, in which she solved two long-standing problems and connected the two into a masterful thesis, catapulted her into even greater fame. It yielded papers in each of the top three mathematics journals, Stanford said.

“The majority of mathematicians will never produce something as good,” said Benson Farb, a mathematician at the University of Chicago. “And that’s what she did in her thesis.”

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani issued a statement Saturday praising Mirzakhani. “The grievous passing of Maryam Mirzakhani, the eminent Iranian and world-renowned mathematician, is very much heart-rending,” Rouhani said in a message that was reported by the Tehran Times.

Ms. Mirzakhani was a professor at Princeton University and a research fellow at the Clay Mathematics Institute before joining the Stanford faculty.

When she was working, Ms. Mirzakhani would doodle on sheets of paper and scribble formulas on the edges of her drawings, leading her daughter to describe the work as painting, according to Stanford’s statement.

Ms. Mirzakhani once described her work as “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.”

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne called Mirzakhani a brilliant theorist who made enduring contributions and inspired thousands of women to pursue math and science.

Ms. Mirzakhani is survived by her husband, Jan Vondrák, and her daughter, Anahita.</s>Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford University professor who was the first and only woman to win the Fields Medal in mathematics, has died. She was 40.

Stanford University said Mirzakhani died Saturday after a long battle with breast cancer.

"Maryam is gone far too soon, but her impact will live on for the thousand of women she inspired to pursue math and science," said Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne in a press release.

"Her contributions as both a scholar and a role model are significant and enduring, and she will be dearly missed here at Stanford and around the world."

Related: Mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani Becomes First Woman to Win Fields Medal

Mirzakhani was born in Iran and joined Stanford as a mathematics professor in 2008.

In 2014, she won one of the Fields Medal — widely considered to be the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize — for her groundbreaking work in theoretical mathematics. According to the university, Mirzakhani's research could have impacts on the "theoretical physics of how the universe came to exist" and "implications for the study of prime numbers and cryptography."

The university praised Mirzakhani and several of her colleagues described her as "ambitious, resolute and fearless in the face of problems others would not, or could not, tackle."

Mirzakhani is survived by her husband and a daughter.</s>Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford University professor who is the only woman to have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, has died. She was 40.

Stanford said Mirzakhani died Saturday. She had breast cancer. The school didn't indicate where she died.

Mirzakhani was born in Iran and joined Stanford as a mathematics professor in 2008.

Stanford said her work involved the geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces such as spheres and doughnut shapes.

She received the Fields Medal in 2014. The award is considered the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Stanford said her work involved the geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces such as spheres and doughnut shapes.

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne called Mirzakhani a brilliant theorist who made enduring contributions and inspired thousands of women to pursue math and science.

“Maryam is gone far too soon, but her impact will live on for the thousands of women she inspired to pursue math and science,” he said in a statement to Stanford News. She was “a humble person who accepted honors only with the hope that it might encourage others to follow her path. Her contributions as both a scholar and a role model are significant and enduring, and she will be dearly missed here at Stanford and around the world.”

Mirzakhani is survived by her husband and a daughter.

Jack Shaheen dies; scholar persuaded Disney to alter 'Aladdin' as he fought Hollywood's racial stereotypes

Gray Reisfield, niece and heiress to Greta Garbo fortune, dies at 85</s>Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian-born who was the first woman to win the coveted Fields Medal, has in a US hospital after a battle with She was 40.

 

 Mirzakhani' friend Firouz Naderi announced her death today on Instagram, and her relatives confirmed the death to the Mehr agency in Iran.



"A light was turned off today. It breaks my heart ..... gone far too soon," wrote Naderi, a former director of Solar Systems Exploration at NASA."A genius? Yes. But also a daughter, a mother and a wife," he added in a subsequent post.Mirzakhani, a professor at in California, after she had been battling for four years spread to her bone marrow, Iranian media said.In 2014 Mirzakhani won the Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Mathematics, which is awarded by the Congress of Mathematicians.The award recognized her sophisticated and highly original contributions to the fields of geometry and dynamical systems, particularly in understanding the symmetry of curved surfaces such as spheres.Born in 1977 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 when she won the"I felt that this was something I could do, and I wanted to pursue this path."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 added.In 2008 she became a professor of mathematics at Stanford. She is survived by her husband and young daughter.In Iran, President Hassan Rouhani said that Mirzakhani's "doleful passing" has caused "great sorrow," state media reported.Rouhani praised the "unprecedented brilliance of this creative scientist and modest human being, who made Iran's name resonate in the world's scientific forums, (and) was a turning point in showing the great will of Iranian women and young people on the path towards reaching the peaks of glory...In various arenas."Separately on Instagram, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Mirzakhani's death is a cause for grief for all Iranians.Mirzakhani became known on the mathematics scene as a teenager, winning gold medals at both the 1994 and 1995 Math Olympiads — and finished with a perfect score in the latter competition.She went on to win the 2009 Blumenthal Award for the Advancement of Research in Pure Mathematics, and the 2013 Satter Prize of the American Mathematical Society.Mirzakhani studied mathematics in Iran and earned a PhD degree from Harvard in 2004. She then taught at Princeton University before moving to Stanford in 2008.The Fields Medal, which she won in 2014, is given out every four years, often to multiple winners aged 40 or younger.</s>Stanford University’s Maryam Mirzakhani was the first and only woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal in mathematics.

STANFORD, Calif. — Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford University professor who was the first and only woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal in mathematics, has died. She was 40.

Ms. Mirzakhani, who had breast cancer, died Saturday, the university announced. It did not indicate where she died.

In 2014, Ms. Mirzakhani was one of four winners of the Fields Medal, which is presented every four years and is considered the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She was named for her work on complex geometry and dynamic systems.

“Mirzakhani specialized in theoretical mathematics that read like a foreign language by those outside of mathematics: moduli spaces, Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, Ergodic theory and symplectic geometry,” according to the Stanford press announcement. “Mastering these approaches allowed Mirzakhani to pursue her fascination for describing the geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces — spheres, doughnut shapes and even amoebas — in as great detail as possible.”

The work had implications in fields ranging from cryptography to “the theoretical physics of how the universe came to exist,” the university said.

Ms. Mirzakhani was born in Tehran, Iran, and studied there and at Harvard University. She joined Stanford as a mathematics professor in 2008.

She originally dreamed of becoming a writer but then shifted to mathematics.

When she was working, Ms. Mirzakhani would doodle on sheets of paper and scribble formulas on the edges of her drawings, leading her daughter to describe the work as painting, according to the Stanford statement.

Ms. Mirzakhani once described her work as “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.”

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne called Ms. Mirzakhani a brilliant theorist who made enduring contributions and inspired thousands of women to pursue math and science.

She is survived by her husband, Jan Vondrák, and daughter, Anahita.</s>Maryam Mirzakhani, the Stanford University mathematician who was the only woman to win the Fields Medal, died Saturday (July 15) of breast cancer at age 40.

The Stanford News reported that Mirzakhani, who was born in Iran, used theoretical mathematics to explore the geometric complexities of curved surfaces—a field of study that has implications on quantum-field theory, engineering and material sciences, and the study of prime numbers and cryptography.

Although those implications are foreign to many of us, Mirzakhani’s pursuit of them—and the poetic way in which she described her process—made her a role model, as Quartz’s Zach Wener-Fligner wrote when she won the Fields Medal in 2014:

Mirzakhani is a welcome inspiration for girls and young women enticed by the more rigorous, theoretical side of STEM. She’s an academic counterpart to successful tech businesswomen like Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Yahoo’s Marissa Meyer. Like them, Mirzakhani has balanced motherhood with a successful career—she has a three-year-old daughter who often exclaims that “Mommy is painting again!” when Mirzakhani scribbles mathematical doodles.

In the video below, Mirzakhani says before she wanted to be a mathematician, she had hoped to be a writer.

“I got excited about [math] maybe, just as a challenge,” she said.

“You have to spend some energy and effort to see the beauty of math,” Mirzakhani once told a reporter. She also compared the challenge of developing proofs to “being lost in a jungle.”

“Use all the knowledge that you can gather to come up with some new tricks,” she said, “and with some luck you might find a way out.”

Read this next: A woman winning the Fields medal for the first time is great for tech companies and STEM education</s>STANFORD, Calif. — Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford University professor who was the first and only woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal in mathematics, has died. She was 40.

Mirzakhani, who battled breast cancer, died on Saturday, the university announced. It did not indicate where she died.

In 2014 Mirzakhani was one of four winners of the Fields Medal, which is presented every four years and is considered the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She was named for her work on complex geometry and dynamic systems.

“Mirzakhani specialized in theoretical mathematics that read like a foreign language by those outside of mathematics: moduli spaces, Teichmuller theory, hyperbolic geometry, Ergodic theory and symplectic geometry,” according to the Stanford press announcement. “Mastering these approaches allowed Mirzakhani to pursue her fascination for describing the geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces—spheres, doughnut shapes and even amoebas – in as great detail as possible.”

The work had implications in fields ranging from cryptography to “the theoretical physics of how the universe came to exist,” the university said.

Mirzakhani was born in Tehran, Iran, and studied there and at Harvard University. She joined Stanford as a mathematics professor in 2008.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani issued a statement Saturday praising Mirzakhani. “The grievous passing of Maryam Mirzakhani, the eminent Iranian and world-renowned mathematician, is very much heartrending,” Rouhani said in a message that was reported by the Tehran Times.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said her death pained all Iranians, the Tehran Times reported.

“The news of young Iranian genius and math professor Maryam Mirzakhani’s passing has brought a deep pang of sorrow to me and all Iranians who are proud of their eminent and distinguished scientists,” Zarif posted in Farsi on his Instagram account. “I do offer my heartfelt condolences upon the passing of this lady scientist to all Iranians worldwide, her grieving family and the scientific community.”

Mirzakhani originally dreamed of becoming a writer but then shifted to mathematics.

When she was working, Mirzakhani would doodle on sheets of paper and scribble formulas on the edges of her drawings, leading her daughter to describe the work as painting, according to the Stanford statement.

Mirzakhani once described her work as “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.”

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne called Mirzakhani a brilliant theorist who made enduring contributions and inspired thousands of women to pursue math and science.

Mirzakhani is survived by her husband, Jan Vondrak, and daughter, Anahita.</s>STANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford University professor who was the first and only woman to win the Fields Medal in mathematics, has died. She was 40.

Stanford University says Mirzakhani died Saturday. She had breast cancer. The school didn't indicate where she died.

Mirzakhani was born in Iran and joined Stanford as a mathematics professor in 2008.

She received the Fields Medal in 2014. The award is considered the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Stanford says her work involved the geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces such as spheres and doughnut shapes.

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne calls Mirzakhani a brilliant theorist who made enduring contributions and inspired thousands of women to pursue math and science.

Mirzakhani is survived by her husband and a daughter.</s>Iranian-born mathematician and the first female recipient of the Fields Medal award, Maryam Mirzakhani, is dead, according to Washington Post.

Mirzakhani, the newspaper stated, died on July 15 at the age of 40.

Stanford University, where she had been a professor since 2008, gave the cause of her death as breast cancer but did not state where she died.

Mirzakhani grew up in Tehran and came to the United States in 1999 for graduate study at Harvard University.

Her mathematical interests included the theoretical study of complex geometric shapes and the movement of billiard balls across surfaces.

Her work was deeply theoretical, but other mathematicians considered it boldly original and of untold future importance.

Her doctoral dissertation, which she completed in 2004, solved two long-standing mathematical problems and led to publications in three major mathematics journals.

“She has a fearless ambition when it comes to Mathematics,” her Harvard mentor, Curtis McMullen, a past Fields Medal winner, told Quanta Magazine in 2014.

Another academic collaborator at the University of Chicago, who is also a mathematician, Alex Eskin, described her contributions as “the kind of Mathematics you immediately recognise belongs in a textbook.”

Mirzakhani was particularly interested in the “geometric and dynamic complexities of curved surfaces,” Stanford said in a statement.

These surfaces included spheres, amoebas and complex hyperbolic structures, or saddle-shaped or doughnut-shaped abstract objects with multiple openings. She also studied the dynamics of how particles move or flow across surfaces — like the trajectory of billiard balls rolling on tables of different configurations.

Her work is already widely influential in Mathematics, with possible future use in engineering, cryptography and Theoretical Physics, including studies of the origin of the universe.

In 2014, she was one of four mathematicians to receive the Fields Medal — officially called the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, which is awarded by the International Mathematical Union. Sometimes called the equivalent of the Nobel Prize, it is presented every four years to no more than four mathematicians under the age of 40.

When Dr. Mirzakhani won the Fields Medal, it was considered a moment of great symbolic importance for women in Mathematics and Science. She is the only woman to have received the medal, named for Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields, since it was first awarded in 1936.

She often sketched mathematical proofs on large sheets of paper — a process her young daughter called “painting” and which Dr. Mirzakhani likened to composing a novel.

“There are different characters, and you are getting to know them better,” she told Quanta Magazine. “Things evolve, and then you look back at a character, and it’s completely different from your first impression.”</s>“She was a master of curved spaces,” said Manjul Bhargava about celebrated fellow mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, who died on Saturday at age 40 after a battle with breast cancer. Bhargava and Iranian national Mirzakhani won the Fields Medal, the topmost international prize in mathematics, often described as the Mathematics Nobel, together in 2014.

Mirzakhani, who grew up in the war-torn Iran of the 1980s, was the first — and so far the only — woman to win the Fields Medal, which, since 1936, has been awarded to up to four mathematicians under the age of 40 every four years.

“Everyone knows that the shortest distance between two points on a flat surface is a straight line. But if the surface is curved — for example, the surface of a ball or a doughnut — then the shortest distance (along the surface) between two points will be along a curved path, and can thus be more complicated. Maryam proved many amazing theorems about such shortest paths — called ‘geodesics’ — on curved surfaces. Her work, and the research programmes she started, will have an impact on mathematics and physics for years to come,” Bhargava, mathematics professor at Princeton University, said in an email sent to The Sunday Express.

Bhargava said he was “devastated” to hear the news of Mirzakhani’s death. “She was just a wonderful person — so humble, brilliant, creative, private, caring. We overlapped at Harvard University early in our careers, and became instant friends then. I still remember the nice times, when she and I and a handful of others would be the last remaining mathematicians working late at night in the mathematics department. Although we didn’t work in the same area, we shared a love of mathematics and always supported each other and enthusiastically followed each other’s work. We never imagined at that time, 15 years ago, that we would one day together receive Fields Medals. It was indeed a great honour for me to receive it together with her,” he said.

Mirzakhani is survived by her husband, mathematician Jan Vondrak, and daughter Anahita.

Mirzakhani, who was a professor of mathematics at Stanford University in the United States, broke new grounds in the study of complex curved or closed surfaces, referred to as Riemann surfaces. One of the simplest examples of such structures is the doughnut, which is a circular surface with a hole in between, or a pretzel, which is like two doughnuts attached side by side. The geometry on such, and much more complex curved structures, is very different from the more familiar two and three-dimensional geometry on flat surfaces.

“Her PhD thesis on the geometry of such surfaces was one of the most remarkable in this area of mathematics in several decades. She came up with three major results, all of them making a fundamental breakthrough in our understanding of these kind of geometries that mathematicians and physicists deal with on a regular basis,” Mahan Mj of the School of Mathematics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai told The Indian Express.

For all her brilliance in mathematics, Mirzakhani wanted to become a writer when she was a child. In one of her interviews following the Fields Medal, she said her most exciting pastime used to be reading novels. “I never thought I would pursue mathematics until my last year in high school… My older brother was the person who got me interested in science in general. He used to tell me what he learned in school. My first memory of mathematics is probably the time that he told me about the problem of adding numbers from 1 to 100. I think he had read in a popular science journal how Gauss solved this problem. The solution was quite fascinating for me. That was the first time I enjoyed a beautiful solution, though I couldn’t find it myself,” she had said in an interview to the Guardian newspaper.

“…the most rewarding part (of doing mathematics) is the “Aha” moment, the excitement of discovery and enjoyment of understanding something new – the feeling of being on top of a hill and having a clear view. But most of the time, doing mathematics for me is like being on a long hike with no trail and no end in sight,” she was quoted as saying in that interview.

The Fields Medal in 2014 had brought global attention on Mirzakhani, who had just begun to show signs of recovery from her disease at that time. The award had triggered mixed reactions in her home country. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in a congratulatory message, had posted two pictures of her on his Twitter page, one in an Islamic dress with headscarf but face uncovered, and the second in which she was wearing a shirt and no headscarf. The photos had kicked a row in Iran then and Rouhani had been criticised by some for posting the photo without the Islamic hijab.

Despite the earlier recovery, the disease later spread to her bones. “She was always very private about her medical condition, so I don’t know how much she would want me to say, but the way she bravely dealt with her condition and the associated debilitating treatments, while continuing to produce consistently groundbreaking mathematics — not to mention taking care of her family and her young daughter — was truly unbelievable and inspirational. Most people around her did not even know of her condition for most of her illness,” Bhargava said.

“Mathematics takes a big hit today, and so does humanity. We will miss her deeply,” he said.

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Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman and first Iranian to win the Fields Medal in mathematics, dies at 40 of breast cancer.