In Memoriam: Maryam Mirzakhani, 1977-2017

Maryam Mirzakhani, a professor of mathematics at Stanford University, died on July 15. She was 40 years old and suffered from breast cancer.

In 2014 Professor Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal, considered by many as the “Nobel Prize of Mathematics.” Professor Mirzakhani was the first woman to ever be awarded the Fields Medal, which was established in 1936. In 2016, Professor Mirzakhani became the first Iranian woman to have been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

Professor Mirzakhani has served on the Stanford faculty since 2008, achieving the status of full professor at the age of 31. Earlier, she taught at Princeton University.

A native of Iran, Professor Mirzakhani was a graduate of the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, and earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University.

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