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Mathematics prizes have a gender problem — can it be fixed?

Female representation among mathematicians is improving. But the field’s most prestigious awards are still going almost exclusively to men.
  1. Davide Castelvecchi
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In July, up to four of the world’s most promising young mathematicians will receive a Fields Medal, one of the discipline’s highest honours. But the prize, awarded every four years, has honoured only one woman since it was inaugurated in 1936.

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Nature 606, 240-241 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01481-w

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 27 May 2022: An earlier version of this story stated that the International Mathematical Union has instituted a prize named after a woman, Olga Ladyzhenskaya. A committee of the International Congress of Mathematicians has instituted it.

References

  1. Golbeck, A. L., Barr, T. H. & Rose, C. A. Not. Am. Math. Soc. 67, 1200–1206 (2020).

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  2. Popejoy, A. B. & Leboy, P. S. J. Math. Syst. Sci. 2, 292–298 (2012).

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  3. Mayfield, B. in Fifty Years of Women in Mathematics (eds Beery, J. L., Greenwald, S. J. & Kessel, C.) 901–917 (Springer, 2022).

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