Maryam Mirzakhani becomes the First Woman to Win Fields Medal

Stanford University professor Maryam Mirzakhani has become the first woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal.

Winners of the 2014 Fields Medal were announced Wednesday by the International Congress of Mathematicians. This year, the event is taking place at Seoul, Korea.

The Fields medal was established in 1936 and is considered as the Nobel Prize of mathematics.

"This is a great honor. I will be happy if it encourages young female scientists and mathematicians," Mirzakhani said in a news article from the Stanford University. "I am sure there will be many more women winning this kind of award in coming years."

The prize is worth Canadian $15,000 and is given to exceptional mathematicians under the age of 40 years. The award is given once every four years and is considered as the top award in mathematics. So far, 55 mathematics talents have won the prestigious award.

Mirzakhani was born in Tehran, Iran, and stayed there until she began her doctorate at the Harvard University, Reuters reports.

As a young girl, Mirzakhani wanted to be a writer. But, her interest shifted towards mathematics during her high school years.

The Fields medal recognizes Mirzakhani's contribution towards geometry and dynamical systems, particularly of curved surfaces. Other researchers said that although the work that got her the award is purely theoretical, her research can help advance quantum physics theory.

"I am thrilled that this day has finally come," Sir Tim Gowers, a Fields medallist and mathematician at Cambridge University, told the Guardian. "Although women have contributed to mathematics at the highest level for a long time, this fact has not been visible to the general public. I hope that the existence of a female Fields medallist, who will surely be the first of many, will put to bed many myths about women and mathematics, and encourage more young women to think of mathematical research as a possible career."

Fields Medal 2014 was also awarded to three other mathematicians: Martin Hairer (38), Austrian based at the Warwick University in the UK; Manjul Bhargava,( 40) Canadian-American at the Princeton University in the US and Artur Avila (35), Brazilian-French researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of Jussieu in Paris, Guardian reported.

The New York Times had an interesting article on how and why the "Nobel prize" for Mathematics was established.

Read more about the mathematicians who won the award, here.