Fields Medal winner Maryam Mirzakhani dies at 40

Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian-born mathematician who was the first woman to win the coveted Fields Medal, has died in a U.S. hospital after a battle with cancer. She was 40.

Ms. Mirzakhani’ friend Firouz Naderi announced her death on Saturday on Instagram, and her relatives confirmed the death to the Mehr agency in Iran.

“A light was turned off today. It breaks my heart gone far too soon,” wrote Mr. Naderi, a former director of Solar Systems Exploration at NASA.

“A genius? Yes. But also a daughter, a mother and a wife,” he added in a subsequent post.