Mathematician Hong Wang has become only the third woman in history to receive the Fields Medal (widely regarded as mathematics' highest honour, awarded every four years to researchers under 40), following Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014 and Maryna Viazovska in 2022. Wang, a professor at New York University's Courant Institute, was recognised for her work in harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory, including a landmark 127-page proof solving the long-unsolved three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture alongside collaborator Joshua Zahl. The 2026 medals were also awarded to Yu Deng of the University of Chicago, John Pardon of Stony Brook University, and Jacob Tsimerman of the University of Toronto, with Wang and Deng becoming the first Chinese nationals to receive the prize since Shing-Tung Yau in 1982.