Indian-Australian mathematician Akshay Venkatesh wins prestigious Fields Medal

New York, Aug 2: Renowned Indian-Australian mathematician Akshay Venkatesh has been judged as one of the four winners of mathematics' prestigious Fields Medal, also referred to as the Nobel for the subject, PTI reported.

The Fields medals are given every four years to the most promising mathematicians below 40.

Thirty-six-year-old Vankatesh, who was born in New Delhi and is currently teaching at Stanford University, has been awarded the prestigious medal for his contributions to various subjects in mathematics, PTI added.

New Delhi-born Venkatesh, 36, who is currently teaching at Stanford University, has won the Fields Medal for his profound contributions to an exceptionally broad range of subjects in mathematics.

Venkatesh was honoured with the award at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, August 1.

Venkatesh, who moved with his parents to Australia's Perth at the age of 2 grew up as a mathematics prodigy and won several awards and accolades since his school days. He also won prizes in physics besides mathematics in his younger days, the PTI report said.

Finishing high school at the age of 13, Venkatesh graduated with first class honours in mathematics from the University of Western Australia in 1997, at the age of 16.

Venkatesh then earned his PhD in 2002 at 20 and has held high academic positions since then. From a post-doctoral position at MIT to becoming a Clay Research Fellow, Akshay has achieved it all and now is a professor at Stanford University.

The man has already won prestigious awards like the Infosys Prize, the Salem Prize, the Sastra Ramanujan Prize and the Ostrowski Prize.

Besides Venkatesh, the other three winners of the Field Medal this year are Caucher Birkar, an Iranian-Kurdish origin Cambridge University professor; Peter Scholze, a German professor who teaches at the University of Bonn and Alessio Figalli from Italy who teaches at ETH Zurich, the PTI report added.

Each winner got a prize money of 15,000 Canadian dollar (USD11,525)

The Fields Medal was started in 1932 following the request of Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields, who ran the 1924 Mathematics Congress in the city of Toronto.