---
title: Hong Wang Becomes the Third Woman Ever to Win a Fields Medal
description: Hong Wang and fellow Peking University alumnus Yu Deng both won 2026 Fields Medals, math highest honor, in the same historic year.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-07-26T01:24:07.032Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/hong-wang-third-woman-fields-medal
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/fields-medal-2026-ceremony-35391.webp
categories: Science & Tech
content_type: News
region: Global
publication: Sovereign Magazine
schema_type: Article
---

Hong Wang, a mathematician who holds professorships at New York University's Courant Institute and at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France, has been awarded the 2026 Fields Medal. She becomes only the third woman, and the first Chinese woman, to receive the prize since it was first given in 1936. Wang was recognized for resolving the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, a longstanding problem at the intersection of analysis and geometry, working with coauthor Joshua Zahl.

The Fields Medal is awarded by the International Mathematical Union once every four years, to mathematicians under 40, and is widely regarded as the field's top honor. This year's medals were announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia, alongside three other winners: Yu Deng of the University of Chicago, John Pardon of Stony Brook University, and Jacob Tsimerman of the University of Toronto. Wang and Deng share more than a ceremony. Both are alumni of Peking University's School of Mathematical Sciences, entering the same 2007 cohort, and the university says it is the first time two graduates from the same PKU class have won Fields Medals in the same year. The university also noted a broader milestone for itself: 10 alumni and four faculty members spoke at the 2026 ICM, a record for the school.

## What Is the Kakeya Conjecture

The Kakeya conjecture concerns how small a set can be while still containing a line segment pointing in every possible direction. It sounds narrow, but the question has proven central to analysis, harmonic analysis in particular, and has connections that ripple into other areas of mathematics. Wang and Zahl resolved the three-dimensional case, closing a problem mathematicians had worked on for decades.

## From Peking University to Chicago and New York

Wang and Deng's careers diverged widely after their shared start at Peking University. Wang completed her PhD in 2019 at MIT, then worked at UCLA before joining NYU Courant's faculty in 2023. She was named a Silver Professor, [NYU's Silver Professorship](https://cims.nyu.edu/dynamic/news/1521/), earlier in 2026, and also serves as a Permanent Professor at IHES in France.

Deng continued his undergraduate studies at MIT after entering PKU in 2007, then earned his PhD from Princeton. He was later a Courant Instructor at NYU, the same institution now home to Wang, before becoming a professor at the University of Chicago. There, working with Ma Xiao and Zaher Hani, he advanced Hilbert's sixth problem, a challenge first posed by David Hilbert more than a century ago, by establishing a rigorous mathematical pathway connecting the dynamics of individual particles to the macroscopic equations that describe fluids and gases.

## Who Else Won the 2026 Fields Medal

Rounding out this year's four medalists, [confirmed by the Centre de Recerca Matemàtica](https://www.crm.cat/hong-wang-wins-the-fields-medal-a-year-after-her-kakeya-lecture-at-the-crm/), are John Pardon of Stony Brook University and Jacob Tsimerman of the University of Toronto.

> "It marks the first time two alumni from the same 2007 cohort have won a Fields Medal in the same year."
> — Peking University

## FAQ

**Q: Is the Fields Medal more prestigious than a Nobel Prize?**
There is no direct comparison, since the two prizes cover different fields and the Nobel Prizes have no mathematics category at all. Within mathematics, the Fields Medal carries comparable weight to a Nobel, and its scarcity, awarded to at most four people every four years, makes it rarer.

**Q: What is the simplest explanation of the Kakeya problem?**
At its simplest, the Kakeya problem asks how compact a shape can be made while still allowing a needle to be rotated through every direction within it. Wang and Zahl's work settled this question for three-dimensional space, a result mathematicians had pursued for years.

**Q: Does the Fields Medal have an age limit?**
Yes. Recipients must be under 40 years old at the start of the year in which the medal is awarded, a rule intended to recognize promise as much as achievement and to distinguish the prize from lifetime-achievement honors.