For Anahita, her pen, and her journey

I’m terrible at math. This wasn’t always the case, but that is the finality of it. I barely got through algebra in high school and had had enough. Math wasn’t required past sophomore year at the high school I went to, and that is probably a fatal flaw for any institution that teaches children if I’m being frank. I simply wasn’t made to care, so, I didn’t. I wasn’t patient enough with it.
So, as I sit here and type this article, I am also simultaneously listening to and watching Dr. Maryam Mirzakhani teach ‘Dynamics Moduli Spaces of Curves’ in a YouTube video, and I am fascinated. I’m all in. I wish we were all fascinated by Dr. Mirzakhani and her contributions, but that is not reality.
Dr. Maryam Mirzakhani had five strikes against her:
🌑 She was a girl
🌑 She was Iranian
🌑 She was a woman in STEM
🌑 She was a genius
🌑 She had cancer
And that makes me sad. Not because she had cancer, necessarily, but because of how the world around us reacts or doesn’t react at all to a woman who pushes the boundaries of her chosen field and doesn’t even hope to be struck by lightning with their genius but prefers to just keep their chalk to the chalkboard and live a life of humility. Even when you are a Fields’ Medal winner. I never knew what the Fields’ Medal was until 1997 when I was watching ‘Good Will Hunting’, except Maryam is the real deal, and as Robin Williams said in the movie, the Fields’ Medal is a really big deal.
Prof. Dame Frances Kirwan, a member of the medal selection committee from the University of Oxford, said at the time: “I hope that this award will inspire lots more girls and young women, in this country and around the world, to believe in their own abilities and aim to be the Fields Medallists of the future.”
Since 1936, only one woman has ever won the Fields’ Medal, which is most prestigious honor in mathematics, and that woman was Dr. Maryam Mirzakhani, who won it for her work on complex geometry and dynamical systems (neither of which I know anything about).

But before Fields’ Medals, Maryam was a young girl growing up in Tehran, Iran, and her imagination was filled with fictitious heroine characters, who were doing otherworldly things to an 8-year-old’s permeable mind. Just as Maryam was finishing up elementary school, the Iran-Iraq war was coming to a close, and this turned out to be a great time for motivated students. Maryam took a placement test that secured her a spot in an all girls school but much to her chagrin, she tested poorly in math that year, and lost interest in math.
That, of course, would not last. She became a star. She was the first girl ever to make the Iranian math Olympiad team when she was 17, and earned a gold medal. The following year, she earned a perfect score. From there, it was an undergraduate degree in mathematics at Sharif University in Tehran in 1999, and then off to Harvard for graduate school, where the brilliance would be extrapolated many times over.
Her greatest teacher was perhaps 1998 Fields’ Medal winner Curtis McMullen, who happened to be her doctoral adviser while at Harvard. Maryam became fascinated by hyperbolic geometry, and her daring imagination would take her deep into the heart of the mathematics, where she would not measure herself to what others had done. The love of hyperbolic surfaces Maryam had couldn’t be constructed in ordinary space and existed in the abstract — just like Maryam’s imagination.
In the 150+ years since hyperbolic surfaces were discovered, they have become central objects in geometry, but some of the simplest questions remained unanswered. One, was Geodesics. Even a curved surface can have a notion of a “straight” line segment: it’s simply the shortest path between two points. You might say the love Maryam had for Geodesics was a short path to get there but as the Geodesics grows, so does the love for it, and the ensuing work put into it is exponential and seemingly infinite.
Mathematicians had a difficult time counting closed geodesics of a given length a hyperbolic surface can have, but in Maryam’s doctoral thesis in 2004, she answered this question, developing formulas and building connections to two other major research questions, solving them both. Her thesis resulted in three papers published in three of the top journals in mathematics.
And so Dr. Mirzakhani’s work would continue, slow and steady, creating titantic works for years to come — from what happens to a hyperbolic surface whose geometry is deformed to the dynamical systems of rational billiards to advances in the moduli space, she would continue to create and astonish. Under every layer of difficulty and ideas lay another, hidden beneath, as she would doodle the same images in her mind onto the paper over and over again. There were problems she worked on for a decade.
Just as Maryam wrote novels in her mind as a child, those novels would manifest into a symmetry of curved surfaces such as spheres, the surfaces of doughnuts and of hyperbolic objects. And as she grew into an adult, they were in many ways the same, while being different characters, because it comes from the same creative spirit, and the way that Dr. Mirzakhani would lecture about her works, it was true storytelling in every sense of the word. She was a math genius. But she was also a storytelling genius. There was nothing exaggerated about the hyperbolic maths in her mind, and the ways she would give them to the world. The mathematical virtuoso was driven by pure joy and passion, and it was evident in her work.
Dr. Mirzakhani was driven by the research — not Fields’ Medals or being the female face of mathematics. As the Dr. once said: “There are really many great female mathematicians doing great things”. So, we should start supporting and encouraging them, and leave the prejudices in the past — because narrow mindedness doesn’t lend itself to creative ingenuity and the progress of humanity, let alone mathematics.
Prejudices with women in STEM go back hundreds if not thousands of years.

But, girls aren’t supposed to be good in maths and the sciences. Or, they aren’t supposed to be guided towards careers in STEM — traditionally. And they certainly weren’t meant to be celebrated, which is why you’ve more than likely never heard of Emilie du Chatelet (1706–1749), Mary Anning (1799–1847) and Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) who were all female scientists, all having amazing contributions to the sciences, and sadly all dying relatively young. And much like the aforementioned women, Dr. Mirzakhani kept breaking the mold furthering the maths and sciences, whilst still being subjected to biases and prejudices and never being fully appreciated.
The truth is, men likely feel threatened by people like Dr. Mirzakhani (even if they don’t admit it). Imagine being a man or a group of men sitting in a room and this diminutive woman walks into the room and she happens to be a Fields’ Medal winner and all of the sudden she’s the smartest person in the room. I don’t think men know how to rationalize this. It is not in their biology to do so. They feel emasculated as soon as someone like Dr. Mirzakhani walks into the room.
So what about future generations of women?
What if I told you that women going into STEM wasn’t a pipeline issue? That is wasn’t the desire of women to have a better work-life-balance and that is why they aren’t going into STEM? That the main issue is flat out gender biases which are blatantly discriminate towards women.
- Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students
- Solving the Equation: The Variables for Women’s Success in Engineering and Computing
- How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science
How do we get to a point of subverting expectations of STEM? For starters, let’s start by culling five biases that are pushing women out of STEM or away from pursuing a career in it to begin with.
- Women in STEM constantly feel the need to have to prove themselves over and over and over again until they are blue in the face.
- Women in STEM find themselves walking a tightrope between being seen as too feminine to be competent, and too masculine to be likable.
- When women in STEM have children, they often find themselves running into a wall: their commitment and competence are questioned, and opportunities start drying up.
- ‘Queen Bee’ syndrome. ‘Queen Bees’ are senior women in masculine organizational cultures who have fulfilled their career aspirations by dissociating themselves from their gender while simultaneously contributing to the gender stereotyping of other women. It is often assumed that this phenomenon contributes to gender discrimination in organizations, and is inherent to the personalities of successful career women.
- When women in Stem feel Isolated. Minorities, especially, feel as though they are isolated because of certain prejudices and pre-conceived notions about their background simply because of how they look.
The good news is that more than 29,700 female students took an AP computer science exam in 2017, a 135% increase from 2016 and a dramatic increase from the 2,600 female students that took the AP Computer Science exam 10 years ago.
The bad news is that men think obstacles to equality in the workplace are gone.
If we can stop being so blatantly discriminate towards women and girls in STEM and those who want to pursue a career in STEM, maybe the next Dr. Mirzakhani will be right around the corner, ready to change the world.

The politics of Nationalism has no place in STEM
And speaking of prejudices, we, in the West, aren’t supposed to like anything that comes out of Iran, if you watch/listen to any of the mainstream news outlets that is. How do you explain the lack of coverage of Dr. Mirzakhani’s passing by mainstream press in the U.S.?

One entry, from 2014, by one of the biggest news sources in the U.S., when Dr. Mirzakhani won the Fields’ Medal. And it isn’t an accident. She’s a woman. She’s in STEM, and worst of all, she’s from Iran. The truth is, politics has no place in the sciences or maths. This loss should’ve resonated across the globe, but, it really didn’t. The passing of the first woman EVER to win the Fields’ Medal and it was a blip on the radar largely speaking. As an American, I find it shameful, insulting, and reprehensible.
Juxtapose the West’s coverage of Dr. Mirzakhani’s death to Iran’s coverage, and you can see what the West really missed out on: A brilliant mind and soul whose life was cut much too short.

The pen, the paper, the passion

Dr. Mirzakhani was a wizard with what she was able to do with a piece of chalk in such exacting precision and rhythmic passion. The gigantic black chalkboards dwarfed the petite Dr. in all of her youthful exuberance as she would glide back and forth writing with great fervor and purpose while conveying everything to the audience without missing a beat. She was a spitfire in the lecture forum seemingly only stopping once one of the chalkboards was filled and she would have to slide it up to reveal an empty slate fitted for her noteworthy teachings. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have a 7'0" wingspan to make life at the chalkboard easier because she flew at great heights in her mind, heart, and soul, and that extended way beyond any actual physical limitations placed upon her. She was bound by nothing in the lecture hall. There were no geometric constraints placed upon her.
Maryam taught with so much earnest. She had so much to give and it was impossible not to be captivated by what she conjured in her mind and turned to mathematical possibilities. And while math is almost a foreign concept to me, I can’t help but be mesmerized by the good Dr.’s teachings in her own inimitable style. In the lecture hall, the maths are complicated, but Dr. Mirzakhani’s 5-year-old self is ever present, and the stories that had danced in her mind for so long manifested and became freed to the world.

When I think about Dr. Mirzakhani writing on giant scrolls of paper on her living room floor, I think to myself, “Who writes like that?”, and it’s as if she transported herself back to a time when writing first came to be — in ancient Egypt, 5,000 years ago. When long stalks of papyrus were cut and soaked in water, laid out and pounded flat, until it resembled something that looked like paper. And it was used until paper came to be in 700 AD. And then it was forgotten. And I wonder if this was ever a thought in Dr. Mirzakhani’s mind as she sprawled her works across the living room floor, as a Mead Five Star tablet of paper was simply not conducive to her writings, and a chalkboard was simply too cumbersome and impractical in a home-setting? I wonder if it was intrinsic in her nature to do so or if it was just a matter of utility? I wonder if in some way writing like this on large swaths of paper on her knees was an unspoken homage to how the great ancient Egyptians learned and were educated thousands of years ago? I wonder if she thought about all of the enrichment she had as a child, and how she would be passing that along thru her geometric expressions for untold years to come?

The common theme by which Dr. Mirzakhani learned and taught is a very personal one for me, and if you look closely, you can see it for yourself. From youth to adulthood, Maryam’s pen was never forsaken — it was her most important tool to communicate. Her art, came from her heart, thru the pen, onto the page, and then given to the world. Everything she envisioned in her mind as a young girl she communicated through her creative artistry and this continued with some of the most important maths in history as she got older and the works became much more complex and time-consuming. They became sacrosanct — because Maryam knew what she wanted and she understood her place in the universe. Dr. Mirzakhani’s life perfectly encapsulates how important writing is. And she was a writer. A brilliant one. Math is just not numbers, but a story to tell and hopefully solve. Some of those stories took Maryam years to tell, but she stayed true to the art of writing and to the maths and the pen and chalk never wavered. It was always there for her and she for it. A symbiosis to give to the world, and she did. In research, sometimes the problem may not have a solution at all, but Dr. Mirzakhani always had the ability to generate her own wisdom.
“ Wisdom leads us back to childhood.” — Blaise Pascal

When I see that little girl smiling in the picture, it reminds me of what it was like to be a kid again — to have a big wide imagination and to be encouraged by those around you who love you. Though cut short, Maryam had a fruitful life, and it is one that should be championed, remembered, talked about, and written about (especially in maths). When I see still shots of Maryam and her daughter, I see the same creative doodling spirit, and it makes me hopeful for the future of all of our daughters, and that one day soon, we will appreciate and respect all that women have done and will continue to do for our civilization — which is making it better every single day.
Dr. Mirzakhani once said that: “The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers”. I wish time would have been more patient with you, dearest Maryam, but I’m glad you graced this earth with your brilliance, and I am thankful I was patient enough this time around to learn about you and your maths.
I write this for Anahita, Maryam’s daughter, who has waves of hair just like her mum. Waves that could maybe one day be explained with a new geometrical and dynamical theorem by extension of an open heart, thru the arm into the hand, with gifted pen to papyrus, spread across the floor in all of its magnificence. Not for the sake of a Fields’ Medal, but for the sake of the love of the doodling creative being, and all that it can do and what nourishes it. I wish Anahita extraordinary adventures in all that she will do, geometric or otherwise, and anytime she wishes to remember her mum, all she has to do is pick up the pen, as Maryam’s spirit now lives through Anahita’s creative. Pure. Innocent. Unblemished. Without flaw. That is Anahita.

R.I.P. Dr. Maryam Mirzakhani
