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, the first female mathematician to be given the honor that's often called math's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.


Mirzakhani, 37, is a professor at Stanford University and was honored in Seoul, South Korea, for her "striking and highly original contributions to geometry and dynamical systems."

Mirzakhani was born in Tehran in 1977 and lived there until she began her doctoral work at Harvard. She earned a bachelor's degree from Tehran's Sharif University of Technology in 1999.


"This is a great honor. I will be happy if it encourages young female scientists and mathematicians," Mirzakhani said in a 

. "I am sure there will be many more women winning this kind of award in coming years."


In the statement, she said that as a young girl she dreamed of becoming a writer. But by high school, math problems and proofs had caught her attention.

"It is fun — it's like solving a puzzle or connecting the dots in a detective case," she said. "I felt that this was something I could do, and I wanted to pursue this path."


The Fields Medal, officially the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, was established in 1936, and is awarded every four years by the 

.
The other three recipients of the award this year are Brazilian 

 of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris and Brazil's National Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics; Canadian-born 

Science

Krishnadev Calamur

Author

Four mathematicians were today awarded the Fields Medal, including Iranian Maryam Mirzakhani, the first female mathematician to be given the honor that's often called math's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Math's highest honor is given to a woman for the first time

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