TEHRAN – The University of Tehran is to host the 2nd National Festival on Women and Science in February, commemorating the late Iranian mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani.

The event is to be held to honor exemplary women who are active in academic, cultural and social areas, IRNA reported on Wednesday.

According to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, interested women in three age groups of under 40, 40-65 and over 65 are permitted to attend the festival.

The event pivots on the role of women in entrepreneurship, charity events, poverty eradication, the environment, expanding Iranian civilization and promoting Persian language.

Mirzakhani won a gold medal in the Hong Kong International Mathematical Olympiad, in 1994, to be the first female Iranian student to have snatched a gold medal.

In the 1995 Toronto International Mathematical Olympiad, she became the first Iranian student to win two gold medals.

She obtained her BSc in mathematics from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, in 1999. Mirzakhani then moved to the U.S. and finished a PhD from Harvard University in 2004.

In 2017, Mirzakhani, the winner of Fields Medal, also known as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, succumbed to breast cancer at 40.

NM/MQ/MG