Chinese mathematicians win Fields Medal for first time, but both choose to stay in US

A Chinese national has won the Fields Medal for the first time in history.

According to CNN, The Washington Post, the South China Morning Post and China's state-run Xinhua News Agency, the International Mathematical Union announced Thursday that Wang Hong, 35, and Deng Yu, 37, were among four recipients of the 2026 Fields Medal at the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians, held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

Awarded every four years to up to four mathematicians under the age of 40, the Fields Medal is widely regarded as the Nobel Prize of mathematics.

Wang was recognized for solving longstanding problems spanning harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory.

Harmonic analysis is the study of breaking down complex waves into sums of simpler ones, while geometric measure theory deals with measuring the size of irregular, rough shapes.

Wang told Xinhua that the problem bridging the two fields is the Kakeya conjecture, adding, "I feel like I combined the methods of the two previous fields."

Wang is the third woman to receive the Fields Medal in its 90-year history, following Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014 and Maryna Viazovska in 2022. She holds professorships at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University and at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France.

Deng was honored for his contributions to partial differential equations.

Together with two collaborators, Deng rigorously proved that equations developed in the late 19th century to describe fluid dynamics arise inevitably from the microscopic motion of vast numbers of particles colliding like billiard balls. Deng is a professor at the University of Chicago.

News of the awards spread quickly in China, with the two winners' names occupying the top two trending spots on Weibo on Friday morning. One Chinese internet user wrote that the achievement represented a landmark moment for Chinese mathematics and the realization of a dream cherished by generations of Chinese mathematicians.

China became the fifth country to produce two Fields Medal winners at a single ceremony, joining the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Russia. It is the first Asian country to do so.

Mathematicians of Chinese descent had previously won the medal — Shing-Tung Yau in 1982 and Terence Tao in 2006 — but neither held Chinese citizenship at the time.

Behind the celebration, however, lies a brain drain concern. Both laureates began their studies at Peking University before completing their degrees abroad and taking up positions at foreign universities.

Wang graduated from Peking University, pursued a master's degree in France and earned her doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019. Deng transferred from Peking University to MIT for his undergraduate studies and received his doctorate from Princeton University in 2015.

Shing-Tung Yau, a professor at Tsinghua University, said in an interview with Chinese state media that the two wins fulfilled decades of aspirations in China's mathematics community. "We very much hope they will come back," he said. "It matters to China."

Meanwhile, South Korea produced its first Fields Medal winner at the previous ceremony in 2022.

June Huh, a Korean American who is a professor at Princeton University and a distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study, received the Fields Medal on July 5, 2022, at a ceremony held at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. It was the first time a person of Korean descent had won the award.

Huh was recognized for solving two major mathematical conjectures — the Read conjecture and the Rota conjecture. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Seoul National University before completing his doctorate at the University of Michigan, and holds American citizenship.