Indian-Origin Professor Akshay Venkatesh Wins Field Medal

Akshay Venkatesh, a world-renowned Indian-Australian mathematician, has just received Fields Medal, which is also called the 'The Nobel of Mathematics". This award is bestowed upon every four years to a person who is under 40 and has a promising future in the field of mathematics. Venkatesh is 36-years old and was born in New Delhi. He is currently teaching at Stanford University. His medal is a work of "profound contributions to an exceptionally broad range of subjects in mathematics" and "strikingly far-reaching conjectures" - as quotes in his citation.

The medal was awarded at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rio De Janeiro. The other three winners are Alessio Figalli, Italian mathematician from ETH Zurich, Caucher Birkar, a professor at Cambridge and Peter Scholze from Germany, who is a teacher at University of Bonn. The winner receives a cash prize of 15,000 Canadian dollars each. The prize was inaugurated in 1932 and has honored at least 2 and most likely 4 people since then.

Venkatesh's journey has been full of achievements and accolades. He was a child prodigy who has won several medal at physics and maths Olympiads. He finished his high school at the age of 13 and graduated with first class honors at the age of 16 from University of Western Australia. He has done research work in topology, ergodic theory etc. and has claimed awards such as Sastra Ramanujan prize, Ostrowski Prize, Infosys Prize etc. 

By: Neha Maheshwari

Content: https://www.ndtv.com/indians-abroad/indian-origin-professor-akshay-venkatesh-wins-fields-medal-nobel-of-mathematics-1893678