Maryam Mirzakhani
Awards & Honours
6
Awards Won
7
Honours
5
Rankings
4
Covers
3
Records
Mirzakhani's achievements are historic and deeply celebrated. She is the only woman and only Iranian to win the Fields Medal in its 80+ year history. Her Eskin–Mirzakhani theorem, often called the "magic wand theorem," revolutionized the study of moduli spaces. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, rare honors for a mathematician of her age. The Breakthrough Prize Foundation established the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize in 2019, awarding $50,000 annually to early-career women mathematicians. The 12 May Initiative supports women in mathematics globally, named for her birthday.
Awards
Honours & Distinctions
Honorary Doctor of Science
Awarded honorary doctorate for her contributions to mathematics.
Emmy Noether Lecture
Delivered the Emmy Noether Lecture at the ICM.
Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize
Annual $50,000 prize established in her honor for early-career women mathematicians.
12 May Initiative
Initiative supporting women in mathematics, named for her birthday.
Asteroid 274301 Mirzakhani
Asteroid named in her honor.
Maryam Mirzakhani High School
A Tehran high school renamed in her honor.
Fields Medal Memorial Session
Special memorial session at the ICM.
Rankings & Lists
TIME 100 Most Influential People
Nature's 10
Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women
BBC 100 Women
Rolling Stone 25 Women Who Are Changing the World
Magazine Covers
TIME Magazine
2014-08-18
The Fields Medal: Mathematics' Nobel Prize
Nature
2014-08-13
Profile: Maryam Mirzakhani
The New York Times
2014-08-12
A Mathematician Who Transcends Her Field
Scientific American
2015-03-01
The Magic Wand Theorem
Records & Feats
First woman to win the Fields Medal
Mirzakhani became the first woman and first Iranian to win the Fields Medal in 2014.
First Iranian to win the Fields Medal
She is the only Iranian to have won the Fields Medal as of 2026.
Perfect score at International Mathematical Olympiad
She achieved a perfect score of 42 out of 42 at the 1995 IMO, the first Iranian woman to do so.