Cambridge mathematician awarded 2018 Fields Medal

Caucher Birkar, a Cambridge mathematician, has been named one of four recipients of the 2018 Fields medals, the most prestigious award in mathematics. To go from the point that I didn't imagine meeting these people to the point where someday I hold a medal myself - I just couldn't imagine that this would come true. Caucher Birkar Professor Birkar, who originally came to the UK as a Kurdish refugee, was given the award today at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Fields medals, often called the Nobel Prize of mathematics, are awarded every four years. Medallists must be under the age of 40 by the start of the year they receive the award, with up to four mathematicians honoured at a time. Awarded for the first time in 1936, the medal is recognition for works of excellence and an incentive for new outstanding achievements. Birkar, a member of Cambridge's Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, won the award for his work on categorising different kinds of polynomial equations.