---
title: Hong Wang Is Only the Third Woman Ever to Win the Fields Medal
description: Mathematician Hong Wang is only the third woman, and the first Chinese woman, to win the Fields Medal, for solving the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-07-26T07:39:34.767Z
updated: 2026-07-26T07:39:34.778Z
canonical: https://richwoman.co/article/hong-wang-third-woman-fields-medal
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/hong-wang-fields-medal-35391.webp
categories: Inspiration
content_type: News
region: Global
publication: Rich Woman Magazine
schema_type: Article
---

Hong Wang has just become one of the rarest figures in mathematics. The 2026 Fields Medal, the discipline's highest honour, has gone to only three women since it was first awarded in 1936, and Hong is the newest of them, as well as the first Chinese woman ever to receive it. She was recognised for solving a problem that had resisted the field's best minds for decades.

Hong holds professorships at New York University's Courant Institute and at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques outside Paris. The medal is awarded once every four years by the International Mathematical Union, only to mathematicians under the age of 40, and this year's was announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia. The only women to win it before her were Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014 and Maryna Viazovska in 2022.

## The problem she solved

Hong's medal recognises her work, with her collaborator Joshua Zahl, resolving the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture. The question sounds deceptively small: how little space can a shape take up while still containing a straight line pointing in every possible direction? For decades it sat unanswered, and its reach runs deep into analysis, the branch of mathematics concerned with continuous change. Closing the three-dimensional case is the kind of result that reorders what mathematicians believe is possible.

## The path here

Hong's route to the top of her field ran through four countries. She studied at Peking University, completed her PhD at MIT in 2019, and worked at UCLA before joining NYU's Courant Institute in 2023, where she was named a Silver Professor earlier this year. She also holds a permanent professorship at IHES in France, one of the world's most selective research institutes. A year before the medal was announced, she had presented her Kakeya work at Barcelona's [Centre de Recerca Matemàtica](https://www.crm.cat/hong-wang-wins-the-fields-medal-a-year-after-her-kakeya-lecture-at-the-crm/). She shares the 2026 honour with Yu Deng, a former classmate from Peking University who now teaches at the University of Chicago, though hers is the win that adds a name to one of mathematics' shortest lists.

## Three women in ninety years

In the medal's near-century of history, only a handful of women have reached this level, and the reasons have never been about ability. Mathematics at its highest levels has long been overwhelmingly male, and each woman who breaks through widens the space for the next. Hong now stands alongside Mirzakhani and Viazovska, the third name on a list that the field is, slowly, making longer.

## FAQ

**Q: Who is Hong Wang?**
She is a mathematician at New York University's Courant Institute and at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France, and a winner of the 2026 Fields Medal. She is only the third woman, and the first Chinese woman, to receive the medal since it was first awarded in 1936.

**Q: What did Hong Wang win the Fields Medal for?**
For resolving the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, a decades-old problem in analysis and geometry, in work with her collaborator Joshua Zahl.

**Q: How many women have won the Fields Medal?**
Three. Maryam Mirzakhani won in 2014, Maryna Viazovska in 2022, and Hong Wang in 2026.

**Q: What is the Fields Medal?**
It is widely regarded as mathematics' highest honour, awarded by the International Mathematical Union once every four years to mathematicians under the age of 40.