TEHRAN – Twenty-five female scientists received an award by the fourth National Festival of Women and Science, which kicked off earlier in June.

The event aims to honor exemplary women who are active in scientific and social sections, commemorating the late Iranian mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani.

Interested women participated in 6 groups of humanities, basic sciences, engineering, agriculture, veterinary and environment, medical sciences, art, and architecture, IRIB reported.

In this edition of the festival, 416 women competed in various scientific fields, 25 of whom were among the winners that were announced on the closing date (July 10).

Some 13 people are selected as scientists who will receive Maryam Mirzakhani national award, two women are worthy of appreciation in the scientific section, one will be granted the Parvaneh Farzaneh Award, four won the award of social activists, three people will be granted the award of scientific excellence and two others are the winners of the UNESCO award.

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 Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2004.

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

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