TEHRAN – The 4th National Festival on Women and Science will be held in the fourth Iranian calendar month Tir (starting June 22), commemorating the late Iranian mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani.

The event is to be held to honor exemplary women who are active in scientific and social sections.

According to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, interested women in three age groups of under 40, 40-65, and over 65 are permitted to attend the festival.

Also in the scientific section, participants compete in 6 groups of humanities, basic sciences, engineering, agriculture, veterinary and environment, medical sciences, art, and architecture.

In the social section of the third festival, women university graduates who are currently serving in non-university settings can also compete.

Mirzakhani won a gold medal in the Hong Kong International Mathematical Olympiad, in 1994, to be the first female Iranian student to have snatched a gold medal.

In the 1995 Toronto International Mathematical Olympiad, she became the first Iranian student to win two gold medals.

She obtained her BSc in mathematics from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, in 1999. Mirzakhani then moved to the U.S. and finished a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2004.

In 2017, Mirzakhani, the winner of the Fields Medal, also known as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, succumbed to breast cancer at 40.

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