Maryam Mirzakhani, the Persian Star of the Mathematics Sky

Maryam Mirzakhani was an Iranian mathematician and professor at Stanford University. In 2014, Mirzakhani won the Fields Medal, the most significant award in mathematics, for her work in "Dynamics and Geometry of Riemannian surfaces and their cubic spaces." Her research field included Teischmuller's theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry.

Here is a complete review of who Maryam Mirzakhani is, her education, honors, fields of study, achievements in science, memorial prizes, and death cause.

Who Is Maryam Mirzakhani?

Maryam Mirzakhani was born in Tehran on May 12, 1977. Her father, Ahmed Mirzakhani, was an electrical engineer and the chairman of the board of directors of a charitable educational complex.
Mirzakhani wasn't interested in being the center of attention, so few interviews with this remarkable mathematics scientist remained.
In one of her interviews, she says: "Sometimes I feel like I'm in a big forest, and I don't know where I'm going, But somehow I get to the top of a hill, and I can see things more clearly: what happens then is exciting."
In 2004, she married her husband Jan Vandrak, who is also an associate professor of mathematics at Stanford University and a former researcher of theoretical computer science at the IBM Research Center; and a native of the Czech Republic and has a daughter named Anahita. Unfortunately, she passed away when she was only 40, and mathematics lost one of its most outstanding contemporary scientists.
Maryam Mirzakhani's birthday, the 22nd of Ordibehesht (12th of May), was named "International Women's Day in Mathematics" by the International Union of Mathematical Associations of the World with the proposal of the Women's Committee of the Iranian Mathematical Association.

Maryam Mirzakhani Educations

To know Mirzakhani, we should skim through her education. After completing her primary education, Maryam entered Farzangan High School in Tehran, which belongs to brilliant students, by taking the SAMPAD school entrance exam.

High School Educations

While studying in high school, in their third and fourth year, Maryam Mirzakhani won the gold medal in the National Mathematical Olympiad from Farzanegan High School in Tehran.
She won the gold medal at the World Mathematical Olympiad in 1994 (Hong Kong), scoring 41 out of 42. In 1995 (Canada), she again achieved the gold medal and became the first Iranian student to get the total score.

Cyrus Crafts; Luxury & Unique Products

University Educations

Mirzakhani Maryam received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Sharif University in 1999. She found a simple proof for Shor's Theorem during this period, published in the American Mathematical Association's monthly magazine.
Her doctorate in 2004 from Harvard University was under the supervision of Professor Curtis McMullen, one of the Fields Medal winners. McMullen remembers Mirzakhani during this period as asking many questions in the classes and taking notes in Farsi hurriedly.
"As soon as she started at Harvard, it was clear that she was doing well. It was clear that her doctoral thesis was revolutionary." Behrang Nouhi, Queen Mary University professor, says.

Mirzakhani's Careers

When Mirzakhani was a bachelor's student, she was a fellow of the Research Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Tehran, Iran, from 1995 to 1999. After receiving her doctorate, she became an assistant professor at Princeton University as her first formal career.
Mirzakhani stayed at Princeton until 2008, during which time she was promoted to the rank of full professor. Then, she went to Stanford and started working as a full professor at this university on September 1, 2008, when she was 31.

Maryam Mirzakhany Works and Scientific Achievements

Maryam Mirzakhani opened new ways in the mathematics road. She used to work profoundly and has found and proven many scientific mathematical subjects.

Maryam Mirzakhany Works with Maxim Kontsevich

Maxim Kontsevich presented a new proof of Witten's conjecture in 1992. Mirzakhani offered a new interpretation of counting geodesics in cubic spaces in Kontsevich evidence.

Mirzakhany Works on Sphere Problems

In 1999, Mirzakhani solved a mathematical problem that had puzzled mathematicians for a long time. The problem was finding a practical way to calculate the volume of alternative versions of hyperbolic geometric shapes. While at Princeton University, young Maryam demonstrated that mathematics could solve this problem by calculating the depths of circles drawn on hyperbolic surfaces.
Mirzakhani was trying to solve the mystery of different dimensions of unnatural geometric forms. Suppose the sphere obeys the rule of hyperbolic geometry. In that case, her invention would help define the glob shape's exact volume. The problem is that some of these shapes are hyperbolic, like donuts or amoebas. Their irregular appearance has turned their volume calculation into a severe puzzle for mathematicians.
But by finding a new way, Mirzakhani took a great initiative and calculated their volume by drawing a series of circles on the surface of such complex shapes. There are few practical applications for her research. Still, it turns out that the sphere is governed by hyperbolic geometry. In that case, her work can help define its shape and volume.

William Thurston and Mirzakhany Scientific Achievements

In 2010, Mirzakhani proved William Thursten's "earthquake flux" conjecture on Teishmüller spaces, which had been an open and unanswered question in mathematics for a long time. This conjecture says that such flux is necessarily ergodic.

Mirzakhani and Mixed Geodesics

In 2014, Mirzakhani, Alex Eskin, and Amir Mohammadi proved that mixed geodesics and their layers are regular, not irregular or fractal, contrary to expectation. In other words, the layers of such geodesics are algebraic and, therefore, have properties such as rigidity. The World Mathematical Union described these results in an article called "The Work of Maryam Mirzakhani." "It is surprising to find that stiffness in homogeneous spaces has a reflection in heterogeneous spaces such as the world of cubic space," they announced.
She has proven and solved many other problems and fulfilled other scientific achievements during her concise but valuable lifetime.

Maryam Mirzakhany Awards and Honors

Even after her death, Maryam Mirzakhani is a very honorable and respectful scientist. Here is a complete list of awards, honors, and honorary titles she received during and after her demise.

• Winning both Olympic medals as the first person to win the gold medal in two consecutive years in 1994 and 1995
• Harvard University Honorary Award in 2003
• The award of the best graduates of Harvard University in 2003
• Top Researcher Award of General Mathematics Foundation in 2004
• Being honored as one of the ten young minds selected in 2005 by Popular Science magazine in America and the best mind in mathematics
• Being chosen as one of the ten young minds of the world in 2006 by the American Popular Science magazine
• Winning the Blumenthal Prize in 2009 for her achievements in mathematics; in the announcement that the American Mathematical Society (AMS) published on the occasion of winning this award for Mirzakhani, the reason for receiving this essential mathematical award is "exceptional creativity and an innovative thesis (doctorate) in which various tools from hyperbolic geometry to classical methods of automorphic forms and "Symplectic reduction is combined to obtain results in three important problems."
• She was invited to the International Mathematical Congress in 2010 to lecture on "Topology and Dynamical Systems and Ordinary Differential Equations."
• Winning the Setter Award from the American Mathematical Association in 2013
• General Mathematics Foundation Award in 2014
• Receiving the Fields Medal from the President of South Korea in 2014
• Being chosen as one of the ten most influential people of 2014 by Nature magazine
• Invited speaker of the International Mathematical Congress 2014
• Membership in the French Academy of Sciences in 2015
• Member at the American Philosophers Forum in 2015
• Membership in the American National Academy of Sciences in 2016
• Being introduced as one of the seven influential women scientists in 2018 by the United Nations Women's Organization
• 2020 (posthumous) Brikthrow Prize in Mathematics
• Being elected a National Academy of Sciences member in May 2016 as the first Iranian woman in this academy
• Joining the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2017
• Membership in the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017

Furthermore, She was honored with nine other prominent researchers in the "Fourth Meeting of 10 Brilliant Talents" of Popular Science magazine in America. According to USA Today, this 10-person list includes researchers and young elites active in innovative fields, usually hidden from the public eye. The list's compilation is based on recommendations from various organizations and publishers of scientific journals. These exceptional young researchers in diverse fields are deepening our understanding of the world.

Maryam Mirzakhani Fields Medal in Details

In 2014, Maryam Mirzakhani won the Fields Medal, the top scientific award in mathematics, awarded every four years. Rears to selected scientists under 40, it is also interpreted as the Nobel of Mathematics. She was the first woman and Iranian to receive the Fields Medal.

Reactions to the Fields Medal of Maryam Mirzakhani

One of the first reactions to Maryam Mirzakhani's Fields award belongs to the official description of the Fields Medal Committee: "A master of a remarkable range of different mathematical techniques and fields, he embodies a rare combination of technical ability, bold ambition, broad insight, and deep curiosity."
James Carlson from the Clay Mathematics Institute says Mirzakhani is excellent at finding new connections. She can quickly get from a simple example to a complete proof of a profound theory.
"Even without taking Fields, Maryam Mirzakhani was among the most famous mathematicians in the world," said Ramin Teklo, professor of mathematics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Richard Dawkins congratulated her on his Twitter account for winning the Fields Award.
Jörg Kramer, president of the German Association of Mathematicians, and Günther Ziegler, professor of mathematics at the Free University of Berlin, congratulated Mirzakhani. German publications such as Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Zoddeutsche Zeitung, Tagus Spiegel, and other media covered this issue separately.

Maryam Mirzakhani Death

In July 2016, it was announced that Maryam Mirzakhani was hospitalized at a hospital in the United States of America due to cancer. She had breast cancer four years ago, and this cancer had spread to her bone marrow. Her parents went to the USA to take care of her. She passed away on July 23, 2016, at the age of 40, in a hospital in California.

The Story of Maryam Mirzakhani Accident

In March 1998, the bus carrying mathematics students of  Sharif University, participating in the 22nd student mathematics competition, was on its way to Tehran from Ahvaz, the competition venue. The team, which consisted of Mirzakhani, Iman Iftikhari, and Hossein Namazi, won first place in the country in the competition.
In a tragic accident, a bus carrying six mathematics students from Sharif University, often winners of national and international mathematics olympiads, fell into a valley. Maryam Mirzakhani was among the survivors of this accident.

Maryam Mirzakhani Prizes

As a custom done by scientific organizations for great scientists who have gone, some prizes are represented by some universities and scientific institutions in memory of Mirzakhani Maryam. The most important of these are as follows.

• Maryam Mirzakhani's New Frontiers Prize: It is $50,000 and is presented to women mathematicians who have completed their PhDs within the previous two years. Each year, up to three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes are awarded.
• Maryam Mirzakhani Award in the Mathematical Society of Australia: The Australian Mathematical Society has established the Maryam Mirzakhani Award to support international female students in mathematics in Australia. This award is given in the form of a scholarship to girls who apply for a postdoctoral course in mathematics in Australia.
• On November 4, 2019, the Briktro Award Foundation announced that they have created a new award, the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Award, which will be presented to pioneering women in mathematics.
• Stanford University, thanks to the efforts of "Anousheh Ansari" and "Ruzbeh Yasini Fard," has considered a new scholarship in the name and memory of the late professor of this center, called Professor Maryam Mirzakhani Scholarship, in the amount of 800,000 dollars for its graduate students.

The fantastic point is that some of these rewards belong only to women.

The following picture shows a street art painting of the world's most well-known women, including Maryam Mirzakhani.

Places in the Memorial of Maryam Mirzakhani

When Maryam Mirzakhani was alive, and after her passing away, some places got her name as an honor, the most noteworthy of which are:

• The Faculty of Mathematics of Sharif University of Technology Library
• On August 20, 2015, with the approval of the board of trustees of Isfahan House of Mathematics, this center's convention and congress hall was named "Mirzakhani Hall."
• The theater and library building of Farzangan One High School in Tehran was renamed "Professor Maryam Mirzakhani Building" in honor of this honorable scientist, who was once a student at this educational center in July 2016.
• Conference and Congress Hall of Isfahan House of Mathematics - The board of trustees of Isfahan House of Mathematics approved in 2015 that its conference and congress hall in Science City of Isfahan 
• Assembly Hall of Tehran International and Comparative High School for Boys - from January 2019
• One of the streets of Berlin, Germany - on March 8 and the occasion of Women's Day, proposed by the students of "The Technical University of Berlin."
• One of the streets of Montpellier, France, suggested by the members of the association
• A street next to the famous "Ecole Normale" university in Lyon, France

etc.

Honors other than Mathematical Unions

Many other honorary assignments in various scientific achievements are marked after Maryam Mirzakhani's name to thank her efforts in science.

• A new "pseudo-parasite" bee species discovered in the Sistan region has been named Pristomerus Mirzakhaniae by Zabul University in honor of this scientist and mathematician who won the Fields Medal.
• On February 2, 2018, Stelagic, a company active in Earth observation imaging and analysis, launched a microsatellite of the Gnost series (Spanish: ÑuSat) named in honor of Maryam Mirzakhani.
• Asteroid 321357 Mirzakhani was named in her memory. The Asteroid Survey Center published the official honorary designation.
• In 2024, the International Astronomical Union named one of the craters of the moon Mirzakhani in her honor.
• On February 2, 2018, a Gnost series microsatellite was launched into space by Stelagic, a company active in Earth observation imaging and analysis, named Maryam Mirzakhani.
• In memory of Professor Maryam Mirzakhani, "Asteroid 321357 Mirzakhani" was named and published by the Microplanet Research Center.
• Maryam Mirzakhani's name is on a street sign in Lyon, France, next to the famous "Ecole Normale" university.

Moreover, there are, and will be, other honorable namings next to this mathematician.

Last Words about Maryam Mirzakhani

Maryam Mirzakhani, one of the world's greatest recent mathematicians, was an Iranian woman. Think you are interested in Persian culture or are an Iranian who is proud of your nationality. In that case, CyrusCrafts is where you will feel great. There is impressive information about Persia, its history, and handmade Iranian products here. You can visit all Persian rugs, handicrafts, decorative items, and souvenirs and order them so quickly. CyrusCrafts Co. delivers all your orders at the address by shipping or cargo, whose costs depend on your residence region, wherever in the world.