Anchor Ancestor

Maryam Mirzakhani

(May 12, 1977 and died July 14, 2017)

She was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University.
Upon her death, several Iranian newspapers, along with President Hassan Rouhani, broke taboo
and published photographs of Mirzakhani with her hair uncovered. Although most newspapers
used photographs with a dark background, digital manipulation, and even paintings to “hide”
her hair, his gesture was widely noted in the western press and on social media.
Her research topics included Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and
symplectic geometry.
On 13 August 2014, Mirzakhani was honored with the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award
in mathematics, becoming the first woman to win the prize, as well as the first Iranian.