Fields Medal winners include first Chinese woman and four mathematicians

Hong Wang became the first Chinese woman to win a Fields Medal when the International Mathematical Union named four medalists in Philadelphia, one of mathematics’ highest honors. Yu Deng, Jack Thorne and Jacob Tsimerman shared the prize at the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians, which runs July 23 to July 30 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

The medal is awarded every four years and is limited to mathematicians under 40. The International Mathematical Union says it recognizes both outstanding existing work and the promise of future achievement, and its committee is asked to choose at least two, with a strong preference for four recipients.

The 2026 class points to where frontier mathematics is heading. Deng, a University of Chicago mathematician, was recognized for work in partial differential equations that derived the Boltzmann equation from billiard-ball dynamics for rarefied gases and the wave-kinetic equations from nonlinear dispersive systems. Wang, who is a professor at New York University and a permanent professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, was honored for work on the Kakeya conjecture. Tsimerman, of the University of Toronto, was cited for number theory tied to the André-Oort conjecture. Thorne’s prize kept number theory among the year’s central themes.

The medal also marked a milestone in representation and training. Wang became only the third woman ever to win a Fields Medal, and the first Chinese woman to do so. The 2026 awards were also the first time two mathematicians with undergraduate degrees from mainland China won in the same year, with Peking University naming Wang and Deng among its alumni.

That mix matters well beyond the ceremony stage. Partial differential equations sit at the heart of climate and fluid modeling, number theory underpins cryptography, and harmonic analysis and geometry shape the mathematical tools that feed modern computation and artificial intelligence. The concentration of winners across the University of Chicago, New York University, the University of Toronto, Peking University and European institutions underscored how dependent basic science remains on a cross-border talent pipeline.

The Philadelphia congress drew extra attention after a July website glitch briefly exposed likely medalists before the announcement, and debate over the event had already included a petition and boycott effort. The 2026 Fields Medals showed both the strength of global mathematics and how much national research capacity depends on sustained support for basic science, from graduate training to faculty hiring and long-term funding.