Which is more edifying, that this year's winner of mathematics' top honor, the Fields Medal, is female (the first), or that she's from Iran? Growing up in Tehran, Maryam Mirzakhani read every book she could get her hands on and decided she would be a writer. One encouraging teacher and a determined principal later, she and her best friend were on their way to the International Mathematical Olympiad, where she won gold. And that was, obviously, just the beginning (story, video):
http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious-explorer-of-abstract-surfaces/
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