Who Won the 2026 Fields Medal? Meet the Four Mathematicians and Their Landmark Achievements

The 2026 Fields Medals — often called the Nobel Prize of mathematics — were awarded on July 23 at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Philadelphia to four mathematicians under 40: Hong Wang, Yu Deng, John Pardon, and Jacob Tsimerman . The class was historic on several fronts: Hong Wang became only the third woman to win the medal, and for the first time, two Chinese nationals received the prize in the same year . The announcement was also shadowed by an unusual leak: the winners' names were accidentally exposed through a coding error on the ICM website 10 days before the official ceremony .

The Four Medalists and Their Breakthroughs

Hong Wang (35) — The Third Woman to Win the Fields Medal

Wang, a professor at NYU and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) in France, was honored for proving the Kakeya conjecture in three-dimensional space, a long-standing problem in geometric measure theory and harmonic analysis . The conjecture, which dates back nearly a century, asks how small a set can be while still containing a line segment in every direction. In February 2025, Wang and collaborator Joshua Zahl published a 127-page proof that resolved the question for 3D space .

Wang is only the third woman ever to receive the Fields Medal, following Maryam Mirzakhani (2014) and Maryna Viazovska (2022) . Her earlier honors include the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize (2022), the Salem Prize (2025), and the Ostrowski Prize (2025) .

Yu Deng (37) — Solving Hilbert’s Sixth Problem

Deng, a professor at the University of Chicago, was recognized for his work on partial differential equations, most notably the rigorous derivation of the Boltzmann equation from hard-sphere dynamics for rarefied gases . This achievement represents a major advance on Hilbert's Sixth Problem, posed in 1900, which called for a mathematical derivation of the laws of physics from first principles .

Working with collaborators Zaher Hani and Xiao Ma, Deng developed new methods to connect the microscopic behavior of colliding particles to the macroscopic equations of fluid dynamics, including the compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations . By 2025, the team had published their results in multiple papers, resolving a challenge that had stood for over a century . Deng was also awarded the Clay Research Award in 2026 for this work .

John Pardon (37) — Breakthroughs in Symplectic Geometry and Knot Theory

Pardon, a professor at Stony Brook University, was cited for his contributions to symplectic and contact geometry, including the development of tools to distinguish contact structures and solutions to problems arising from string theory . His work spans multiple areas: his PhD thesis was a technical tour-de-force in symplectic geometry, and he has also made important contributions to knot theory . As Quanta Magazine noted, Pardon "simply solves problems that are, to him, interesting" .

Jacob Tsimerman (38) — Proving the André–Oort Conjecture

Tsimerman, a professor at the University of Toronto, works in number theory and arithmetic geometry. He and his collaborators proved the André–Oort conjecture, a central statement about Shimura varieties, and a major conjecture stated by Phillip Griffiths . His work connects Diophantine equations to the geometry of Shimura varieties and uses o-minimal techniques — a branch of model theory — to tackle problems related to the Hodge conjecture . Tsimerman is noted for borrowing techniques from one area of mathematics and leveraging them in another to reveal surprising underlying structure .

Historic Milestones

• First time two Chinese nationals have won in the same ceremony. Both Wang and Deng are Chinese citizens, a historic first in the prize's 90-year history . The previous Chinese-born winner was Shing-Tung Yau in 1982 .
• Hong Wang: Third woman to win. Wang joins Maryam Mirzakhani (2014) and Maryna Viazovska (2022) as the only women to have received the medal .
• All four laureates work in North America. Wang (NYU/IHES), Deng (University of Chicago), Pardon (Stony Brook), and Tsimerman (University of Toronto) are all based at North American institutions .

The Leak That Spoiled the Surprise

On the evening of July 13, 10 days before the official ceremony, a user querying the ICM 2026 official schedule API discovered that entries marked "HIDDEN" in the website's database were being returned without filtering to the front end . A single curl command revealed four lecture records labeled "HIDDEN Fields Medal Lecture", each with a name attached: Yu Deng, John Pardon, Jacob Tsimerman, and Hong Wang .

The discovery went viral on Chinese-language platforms within hours, and prediction markets pushed the probability of all four names being confirmed to above 98 percent . The ICM took the website offline to remove the entries, but screenshots had already spread widely . Some outlets reported that the leak was triggered by AI-generated code (Codex), adding a modern twist to the security lapse .