TEHRAN – Maryam Mirzakhani is not only a scientific role model for Iranian girls, but a source of honor for the global knowledge, Fatemeh Mohajerani, the spokeswoman for the government, has said.

“At the initiative of female mathematicians, May 12 has been designated as the International Women in Mathematics Day to commemorate Mirzakhani's birthday, the woman who pushed the boundaries of science with her genius and perseverance. Iranians who love knowledge will follow her with hope, courage, and thought,” Mohajerani wrote in her X account, ISNA reported.

Mirzakhani was born in Tehran in May 1977. In 1994 and 1995, she was awarded gold medals by Iran’s Mathematical Olympiad. She received her bachelor’s degree in science from Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology in 1999 and was given a scholarship from Harvard University, where she completed a PhD in 2004.

She became a professor of mathematics at Stanford University in 2008, at the age of 31.

In 2006, Popular Science magazine named Mirzakhani on its annual Brilliant 10 list. In 2009, she won the American Mathematical Society’s Blumenthal Award for the Advancement of Research in Pure Mathematics.

Her other awards include the 2013 Satter Prize in Mathematics and the 2014 Clay Research Award.

In 2014, she won the prestigious Fields Medal award for “her outstanding contribution” to building knowledge and understanding of the dynamics and the geometry of curved surfaces. She was the first woman and the first Iranian to win the prize, which is often considered the “Nobel Prize” in mathematics.

In 2016, she was elected to the American National Academy of Sciences, which recognizes outstanding accomplishments in original research. This honor had previously gone to famous scientists such as Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and Thomas Edison.

The genius mathematician died of cancer in 2017 when she was only 40.

In 2022, the University of Oxford launched the Maryam Mirzakhani Scholarships, which provide support for female mathematicians pursuing doctoral studies at the university.

MT/MG