Maryam Mirzakhani

“I don't give up easily.”

“I'm quite confident, in some sense.”

“I don't think that everyone should become a mathematician, but I do believe that many students don't give mathematics a real chance.”

“Sometimes, properties of a fixed hyperbolic surface can be better understood by studying the moduli space that parameterises all hyperbolic structures on a given topological surface.”

“I like crossing the imaginary boundaries people set up between different fields - it's very refreshing.”

“Most problems I work on are related to geometric structures on surfaces and their deformations.”

“As a graduate student at Harvard, I had to explain quite a few times that I was allowed to attend a university as a woman in Iran.”

“I did poorly in math for a couple of years in middle school; I was just not interested in thinking about it.”

“The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers.”

“When I entered Harvard, my background was mostly combinatorics and algebra.”

“You have to spend some energy and effort to see the beauty of math.”

“In particular, I am interested in understanding hyperbolic surfaces.”

“I don't get easily disappointed.”

“I find discussing mathematics with colleagues of different backgrounds one of the most productive ways of making progress.”

“I grew up in a family with three siblings. My parents were always very supportive and encouraging. It was important for them that we have meaningful and satisfying professions, but they didn't care as much about success and achievement.”

“I don't have any particular recipe. It is the reason why doing research is challenging as well as attractive. It is like being lost in a jungle and trying to use all the knowledge that you can gather to come up with some new tricks, and with some luck, you might find a way out.”

“My older brother was the person who got me interested in science in general. He used to tell me what he learned in school. My first memory of mathematics is probably the time that he told me about the problem of adding numbers from 1 to 100.”

“I find it fascinating that you can look at the same problem from different perspectives and approach it using different methods.”

“As a kid, I dreamt of becoming a writer. My most exciting pastime was reading novels; in fact, I would read anything I could find.”

“I can see that, without being excited, mathematics can look pointless and cold.”