Maryam Mirzakhani

Hello, my name is Maryam Mirzakhani. I was born in a busy city called Tehran in Iran on May 12th, 1977. When I was a little girl, my biggest dream wasn't to solve math problems—it was to become a writer! I loved reading every book I could find and making up my own exciting stories about amazing heroines. My childhood was during a difficult time called the Iran-Iraq War, but books were my escape into other worlds. I never imagined that one day, I would find a different kind of story, one told in the language of numbers and shapes.

Believe it or not, I wasn't always good at math. In middle school, I even had a teacher who thought I wasn't very talented! But then, my older brother told me a story about a famous mathematician named Carl Friedrich Gauss who, as a boy, figured out a super-fast way to add all the numbers from 1 to 100. It was like a puzzle, a story with a secret code, and I was hooked! My best friend, Roya, and I started exploring math problems together. We went to a special high school and in 1994 and 1995, I got to compete for Iran in the International Mathematical Olympiad. I won a gold medal both years, and in 1995, I even got a perfect score! It showed me that with passion and hard work, I could solve any problem.

After finishing my studies in Iran, I knew I wanted to keep learning. In 1999, I made a big move all the way to the United States to study at Harvard University. It was a new country with a new language, but the language of math was the same everywhere. My professor, Curtis McMullen, helped me explore some of the most difficult and beautiful ideas in mathematics. For my final project in 2004, I solved some very tricky problems about complex shapes called hyperbolic surfaces. Imagine the surface of a donut or a pretzel that stretches on forever—I was figuring out the rules for how things move on them! My work was so new and exciting that it was published in the world's top math journals.

When people think of a mathematician, they might picture someone writing long equations on a chalkboard. My work looked a little different. I would get giant sheets of paper, spread them all over the floor, and just... doodle. I would draw strange shapes, squiggly lines, and diagrams for hours and hours. My young daughter, Anahita, used to call it my 'painting.' But these weren't just random drawings! Each doodle was a way for me to think, to explore an idea, and to try to see the story hidden inside a complex math problem. In 2009, I became a professor at Stanford University, where I had plenty of space on my office floor to keep doodling and discovering.

In the world of math, there is a very special prize called the Fields Medal. It's sometimes called the 'Nobel Prize of Mathematics,' and it's given only once every four years to mathematicians under the age of 40. On August 12th, 2014, I received a phone call telling me that I had won! I couldn't believe it. I became the very first woman and the first person from Iran to ever receive the Fields Medal. It was an incredible honor, not just for me, but for women and girls everywhere. I hoped it would inspire other young girls to not be afraid of big questions and to follow their own dreams, whether in math, science, or anything else.

Even as I worked on my math, I was fighting a long illness. I lived to be 40 years old, passing away on July 14th, 2017. Though my life was shorter than I would have liked, I filled it with the joy of discovery. Today, the mathematical ideas I explored are helping other scientists understand everything from the universe to tiny particles. To honor my journey, my birthday, May 12th, is now celebrated as International Women in Mathematics Day. I hope my story reminds you that curiosity is a wonderful gift. Don't be afraid to ask questions, to doodle your ideas, and to see the beautiful stories that are hidden all around you, even in a math problem.