Hong Wang Wins the Fields Medal

July 23, 2026

Hong Wang, Silver Professor of Mathematics, received the Fields Medal at the Opening Ceremony of the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this morning. Distributed every four years by the International Mathematical Union, the Fields Medal is the most prestigious honor awarded to mathematicians under the age of forty—recognizing outstanding mathematical achievement in existing work as well as the promise of future accomplishments. With today’s announcement, Professor Wang becomes only the third female mathematician to receive this prize. 

Professor Wang is celebrated for her work in harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory, including her 2025 resolution of the long-standing Kakeya set conjecture. She completed her Ph.D. in 2019 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the University of California Los Angeles. Professor Wang joined Courant’s faculty in 2023 and was named a Silver Professor earlier this year; she also serves as Permanent Professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques. 

The 2026 Fields Medalists were announced earlier today at the ICM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Yu Deng, former Courant Instructor and current Professor of Mathematics at the University of Chicago, was also recognized for his recent breakthroughs on Hilbert’s Sixth Problem.