Mathematical Inclusion Principle: Maryam Mirzakhani

This is a post in an ongoing series which features people, events, and organizations that demonstrate and/or support the importance of inclusivity and diversity in the mathematical sciences. I will share these posts with the students in courses I teach, and I encourage you readers to do the same. The series title may be considered a "play on words" with the method from combinatorics known as the "inclusion-exclusion principle".

Maryam Mirzakhani born May 12, 1977; Tehran, Iran died July 14, 2017; Stanford, California

The story of Maryam Mirzakhani's life is at turns inspiring and heartbreaking. She was born in the capital of Iran and achieved academic success at an early age, becoming the first female Iranian student to earn a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad and the first Iranian student to obtain a perfect score at that competition [1]. However, her sixth grade teacher "discouraged her interest in mathematics, noting that she was not particularly talented, not at the top of the class" [2]. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran and subsequently emigrated to the United States, obtaining a PhD from Harvard University.

Everyone who writes about Mirzakhani notes her talent, passion, and commitment to both her mathematical work and the communication of that work. For example, an article in the New York Times Magazine's series "The Lives They Lived" [3] and an article in Quanta Magazine [4] both describe and portray her penchant for visualization, drawing, and "doodling", perhaps an informal act that the lay public may not associate with high-level, abstract mathematical research. Her three-year-old daughter would remark, "Oh, Mommy is painting again!", and Mirzakhani herself remarked that "the process of drawing something helps you somehow to stay connected".

The Fields Medal is sometimes referred to lazily in the media as the "Nobel Prize of Mathematics" but this is inaccurate for a few reasons: it is only given out every four years, it has an (arbitrary) age cap, and it hardly represents the diversity of mathematical research and the people who do that work. (See Michael Barany's recent comment in Nature [5] for further information.) In any event, Maryam Mirzakhani was the first (and still only) female recipient of this award, so bestowed in 2014, seventy-eight years after the award's inauguration. The most recent class received their medals in August 2018, and Caucher Birkar earned Iran that nation's second such prize. However, the historical list of recipients is heavily dominated by North American and European nations, and white males, overall [6]. This is hardly the image of mathematics that we in the community wish to convey, but it is a fact. 

Unbeknownst to many, Maryam Mirzakhani was battling breast cancer at the time this award was announced. Her closest friends and colleagues were aware of her struggles and even helped to keep the press from making this illness the main story at the Fields Medal ceremony [7]. She passed away in July 2017 at the age of 40, at the time a professor of mathematics at Stanford University [8]. It's hard to overstate the outpouring of support from the mathematical community upon her death [9]. She will never be forgotten. 

Why do I write this now? Why is this the first post in a series about inclusivity? In today's political climate, it should be obvious, but I will state it anyway. Maryam Mirzakhani is an exemplary American. She found a talent and pursued it, against all odds. Mathematics was her passion and she traveled across the globe to continue her studies and share her work with others. However, an executive order passed by President Donald Trump, and recently upheld (in part) by the Supreme Court of the United States, would have made it difficult for someone like Maryam Mirzakhani to emigrate to America, simply because of her country of origin [10]. Never mind her intellect, her passion, her humanity, her obvious abilities to contribute to the vibrancy of America's scientific community. Never mind all that. The current administration would not bother to consider these attributes merely because she comes from a "Muslim-majority country" [11].

Now, you may say: "How do you know the administration would deny her visa? The ban doesn't apply to all immigrants from those countries." To this, I say: "You're missing the point." The executive order was obviously designed based on those countries being Muslim-majority and nothing else, so why would there have been any reason to allow someone like Mirzakhani to enter the country? At what point will we admit that it is utterly ridiculous that someone can say, "You can't prove I'm racist", and feel like they mean it, despite the fact that they are so obviously racist?

In any event, my point is that Maryam Mirzakhani is a treasure of humanity, that she is now lost, that the current culture of our country (and, indeed, the world) did not appreciate her when she was alive, and that the current politics of our country would likely never have allowed her entry in the first place. I don't want to live in that world, so I will tell everyone I know about Maryam Mirzakhani and her contribution to the history of humanity. She was a stellar human being. She succeeded by fighting obstacles. She was a mathematician. She will be missed.