UPDATE: Harvard University, where she earned her PhD, will be hosting a memorial in Professor Maryam Mirzakhani’s honor this Sunday (August 13). Please see the poster for further information. After a long battle with cancer, Professor Maryam Mirzakhani, the first female winner of the Fields Medal since its inception in 1936, died Friday, July 14. She was 40 years old. Eleny Ionel, Department Chair, said, “It is hard to imagine that someone of her extraordinary energy, determination, and brilliance could be taken away from us at such a young age, in the midst of her outstanding research contributions.

On August 7, an article appeared in the New York Times online edition entitled “With Snowflakes and Unicorns, Marina Ratner and Maryam Mirzakhani Explored a Universe in Motion,” written by Professor Amie Wilkinson of the University of Chicago. A print version appeared in the Times on August 8.   You can read the full article at www.nytimes.com.

Professor Emmanuel Candès will receive the 2017 Ralph E. Kleinman Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) during their Annual Meeting in July. Established in 1998, the Kleinman Prize is awarded every two years to one individual for outstanding research—or other contributions—that bridge the gap between mathematics and applications. To learn more about the Kleinman prize or SIAM please visit their website.

Professor Akshay Venkatesh has been invited to speak at the upcoming International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), to be held in Rio de Janeiro in August 2018. Several other ICM 2018 invited speakers have Stanford Mathematics connections, such as former faculty members Zhiwei Yun and John Pardon. In addition to Pardon, who received his PhD in 2015, other PhD alumni Robert Lipshitz (2006), Jason Miller (2011), Emmy Murphy (2012), and Maksym Radziwill (2013) have also been invited to speak at the ICM 2018.

The recipient for the Undergrad Research Award: Andreea Georgescu (“Representation Theory of the Symmetric Groups”  Advisor: Daniel Bump).  This departmental award is given to a top honors thesis. The recipient for the Firestone Award: Zi Yang Kang (“Strategy-Proof Bilateral Trade”  Advisor: Jan Vondrák). This university award recognizes the top ten percent of all honors theses in social science, science, and engineering from graduating seniors from across the University.