How a woman got Math’s top prize

The U.S. Census Bureau report from 2011 said that women made less than a quarter of the STEM workforce in America. Various reasons have been given for this disparity including the fear of been labeled a nerd, lack of childcare, lack of positive reinforcement and the high competition of the field. A study by Robert Rydell and Katie Van Loo from the University of Indiana showed that the real cause was Stereotypes. Women in a traditional math setting experience “stereotype threat”. The stereotype is "men are better at math than women". Women worry that their performance will confirm the stereotype. Another research from Sian Beilock of the University of Chicago said:

The women start worrying about screwing up which uses up important short term or working memory which could otherwise be used performing the task

The Fields Medal
The Fields Medal is prize awarded by the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU). It is awarded to two or three people that have distinguished themselves in the field of mathematics. Since its creation In 1956, all the winners have been males. In August of 2014 it was awarded to Maryam Mirzakhani, a woman from Iran.

Maryam Mirzakhani

Source

Maryam Mirzakhani attended Sharif University of Technology of Iran. She won two International Mathematical Olympiad Gold Medals in 1994 and 1995. She got her BSc in mathematics then proceeded to the US where she got her PhD from Harvard University. She was known to ask a lot of questions and because she had problems communicating in English, She took her notes in her Persian language. She was tutored by another Field medalist by the name of Curtis T. McMullen. her citation reads:

For her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces.

Research work
The study of the geometry of moduli space is a complex geometric and algebraic entity. It describes a universe in which every point is itself a universe. Her work laid foundation to the number of ways a beam of light can travel a closed loop in a two-dimensional universe. It has shown mathematicians new ways to navigate these spaces. Jordan Ellenberg explains:

Her work expertly blends dynamics with geometry. Among other things, she studies billiards. But now, in a move very characteristic of modern mathematics, it gets kind of meta: She considers not just one billiard table, but the universe of all possible billiard tables. And the kind of dynamics she studies doesn't directly concern the motion of the billiards on the table, but instead a transformation of the billiard table itself, which is changing its shape in a rule-governed way; if you like, the table itself moves like a strange planet around the universe of all possible tables ... This isn't the kind of thing you do to win at pool, but it's the kind of thing you do to win a Fields Medal. And it's what you need to do in order to expose the dynamics at the heart of geometry; for there's no question that they're there.

Conclusion
Scientists believe encouraging equality between men and women in math settings should protect other women from “stereotype threat”. They also stressed the need for Teachers to encourage interactions between men and women both inside and outside the classroom.
Maryam Mirzakhani died on the 14th of July 2017 from breast cancer. She caused quite a stir in her home country Iran as they broke strict Islamic laws and published pictures of her without her headscarf. So much pride was felt that the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said:

Unprecedented brilliance of this creative scientist and modest human being, who made Iran's name resonate in the world's scientific forums, was a turning point in showing the great will of Iranian women and young people on the path towards reaching the peaks of glory and in various international arenas

A member of the medal selection committee from the University of Oxford, Prof Dame Frances Kirwan said:

I hope that this award will inspire lots more girls and young women, in this country and around the world, to believe in their own abilities and aim to be the Fields Medalists of the future.

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