A new prize is founded in the honor of the Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University, Maryam Mirzakhani, who won math's most prestigious medal before she died in 2017.
The $50,000 prize will go to outstanding young female mathematicians who are no more than two years out from earning their doctoral degrees, livescience reported.
"We hope that the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize will help inspire young women to pursue their calling for mathematics," said Richard Taylor, the chair of the selection committee for the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, which is awarding the money. "Recognizing some of the many aspiring women in mathematics is a fitting tribute to the beautiful intellect of Dr. Mirzakhani."
Mirzakhani was just 40 when she died, only three years after winning one of math's most prestigious prizes, the Fields Medal.
Mirzakhani was the only woman to have ever won the prize, which is handed out to mathematicians under age 40.
Her close collaborator, mathematician Alex Eskin of the University of Chicago, won a $3 million Breakthrough Prize this year for work he did in conjunction with Mirzakhani. The pair had worked out a theorem to explain some of the features of a geometric concept called moduli space.
Mirzakhani was also well known for her work in understanding the geometry of spheres, doughnuts and other curved, three-dimensional shapes, according to Stanford University.
Source: Mehr News Agency
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