INFLUENCER

Wang is the first Chinese woman to win the prize. The award recognizes her work in solving the century-old three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, a longstanding open problem at the intersection of analysis and geometry.　

Wang was born in 1991 in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Her parents were local middle school teachers, and her father taught mathematics. She was admitted to the Department of Geophysics at Peking University (PKU) at the age of 16. A year later, she switched her major to mathematics and earned her bachelor's degree from PKU in 2011. She then continued her studies in mathematics, earning a master's degree from École Polytechnique in France.　

Wang later moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she specialized in Fourier analysis and geometric measure theory and earned her PhD in 2019. She is now an associate professor at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.　

After receiving the Fields Medal, Wang quickly became a household name on Chinese social media. Some netizens, however, drew attention to her luxury accessories, including a Cartier necklace and ring, and speculated that her annual income could reach 3-4 million yuan (US$445,000-593,000). The remarks sparked criticism from some who questioned whether a prominent academic should be so interested in luxury goods and material wealth.　

The debate reflects a longstanding expectation in Chinese society that academic researchers should be indifferent to fame and fortune and willing to live modestly, as if material pursuits were inherently at odds with the pursuit of knowledge.　

Others pushed back against the criticism, arguing that scientific achievement does not require poverty and that Wang has every right to enjoy the rewards of her work. Many said that using one's talent to build a successful life with dignity is entirely compatible with being a researcher today.