Among the four individuals awarded the 2026 Fields Medal in the USA on July 23 — the highest honor in mathematics — were two Chinese citizens.
The awards, presented during the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Philadelphia, marked the first time Chinese citizens have received the prize since its establishment in 1936.
Wang Hong (Wang Chung), a professor at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES) in France, solved the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, a problem in harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory that had puzzled mathematicians for more than a century.
Wang Hong, a graduate of Peking University who earned her doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is also the third female recipient of the Fields Medal in history, after Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014 and Maryna Viazovska in 2022.
Deng Yu (Teng Jü), a professor at the University of Chicago, completed a rigorous derivation of the Boltzmann equation from Newtonian hard-sphere dynamics together with collaborators Zaher Hani and Xiao Ma. This work represents a significant milestone in Hilbert's sixth problem, one of the 23 fundamental questions posed by David Hilbert in 1900. Deng Yu studied at Peking University before moving to MIT and earning his doctorate at Princeton University.
John Pardon, a mathematician working in geometry and topology, proved the three-dimensional Hilbert–Smith conjecture and the MNOP conjecture in algebraic geometry. His work was recognized for its broad impact across many subfields.
Jacob Tsimerman, a professor at the University of Toronto, proved the André–Oort conjecture in arithmetic geometry, a problem that had remained open for nearly 40 years.
All four recipients are under the age of 40, as required by the award's statutes.
The Fields Medal is awarded every four years at the ICM and comes with a gold medal and a prize of 15,000 Canadian dollars (approximately 10,650 US dollars).
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