In a remarkable dual achievement, the mathematical community is buzzing following the simultaneous announcement of two major awards for 34-year-old Chinese mathematician Wang Hong.

Her recent accolades have solidified her status as a leading figure in the field and sparked widespread speculation about a potential future Fields Medal, often considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics.

Co-Recipient of the 2025 Salem Prize

Wang Hong was named a co-recipient of the prestigious 2025 Salem Prize for her outstanding contributions to unresolved major problems in Harmonic Analysis and Geometric Measure Theory. The Salem Prize, established in 1968 in memory of French mathematician Raphaël Salem, is awarded to young mathematicians (typically under 40) for exceptional work in Fourier Analysis or related areas.

She shares the 2025 honor with Caltech Mathematics Professor Vesselin Dimitrov, recognized for his fundamental contributions to Diophantine Geometry and Number Theory. Celebrated mathematician Terence Tao immediately offered his congratulations to both recipients.

The Salem Prize has a distinguished track record of predicting future Fields Medalists, with ten past winners eventually earning the higher honor, including Tao himself, who won the Salem Prize in 2000 and the Fields Medal six years later.

Given this trend and Wang's significant breakthroughs, including work on the classic Kakeya Conjecture, she is widely considered a frontrunner for the 2026 Fields Medal. She had previously topped the odds list for the 2026 award.

ICCM Gold Medal for Chinese Fields Medal

Just one day prior, Wang also received the ICCM International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians Gold Medal, an award often dubbed the "Chinese Fields Medal" in the Chinese mathematics community. Her swift capture of these two key indicators of mathematical excellence has fueled excitement about her potential to become the next Fields Medalist.

Shing-Tung Yau, the first Chinese recipient of the Fields Medal, has previously praised her as "the greatest and most important Chinese scholar of the younger generation." Her prominence was recently highlighted when her lecture at Peking University was attended by renowned young mathematician Wei Dongyi, who was seen taking notes diligently in the front row.

A Star on the Rise: Wang Hong's Academic Journey

Born in Guilin, China, in 1991, to parents who were ordinary middle school teachers, Wang Hong's academic path has been characterized by precocity and dedication.

She demonstrated exceptional intelligence by mastering first-grade material before school and subsequently skipping two grades. She developed a strong habit of self-study and independent problem-solving.

At just 16, in 2007, she was admitted to Peking University's School of Earth and Space Sciences. Driven by her passion, she transferred to the School of Mathematical Sciences a year later. She completed her undergraduate thesis on "Classical Hodge Theory and Hodge Theory on Metric Spaces" under the supervision of Professor Liu Zhangju.

Her international education included a mathematics degree from École Polytechnique (2011) and a mathematics Master's degree from Paris-Sud Université (2014). She earned her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2019, advised by Professor Larry Guth.

Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study, she joined UCLA as an Assistant Professor in July 2021. She became an Associate Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU in 2023, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2025. She also holds a permanent professorship at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) in France.