Overview
- The International Mathematical Union announced the winners at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia on Thursday, July 23, 2026, awarding Yu Deng, John Pardon, Jacob Tsimerman and Hong Wang the Fields Medal and CA$15,000 each.
- Hong Wang was cited for resolving the three‑dimensional Kakeya set conjecture and is the third woman to win a Fields Medal and the first Fields winner on the NYU faculty.
- Jacob Tsimerman was recognized for major results on Shimura varieties and related Diophantine problems and is the first mathematician based at a Canadian institution to receive the prize.
- Yu Deng received the medal for a rigorous derivation showing how microscopic particle interactions produce the macroscopic differential equations that describe fluids, addressing a question raised by David Hilbert, and John Pardon was honored for breakthroughs in symplectic and contact geometry with links to physical models.
- The awards have intensified community attention to AI and formal verification of proofs after the June Leiden Declaration urged safeguards for automated mathematical reasoning and raised concerns about plausible but unreliable AI arguments.