Celebrated Iranian Mathematician Dies Aged 40

 

The acclaimed Iranian mathematician and Stanford Professor, Maryam Mirzakhani, has died aged 40 after a long battle with breast cancer. 

 

 Mirzakhani was the first woman to win the Fields Prize, which is awarded every 4 years to celebrate the work of mathematicians aged 40 or younger, and is often described as the Nobel Prize for Mathematics. 

 

Her work focused on the interplay between dynamics and geometry, and her death has been met with a raft of tributes from colleagues and peers praising her brilliant mind. 

 

The Stanford president, Tessier-Lavigne,  described her as 

 

“a brilliant mathematical theorist, and also a humble person who accepted honours only with the hope that it might encourage others to follow her path.”

 

Maryam Mirzakhani grew up in Iran and studied at  Tehran’s Sharif University before completing a PHD in Harvard. 

 

She married and is the mother of 

 

Her death has also caused controversy, as the Iranian- state newspaper ran a story featuring a very old photograph of her wearing a headscarf and not more recent images of her with her hair uncovered.