Wang, 35, received the medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia for her proof of the Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions, written with Joshua Zahl.
She and Yu Deng, honored the same day, are the first Chinese nationals to take the prize since it was first awarded in 1936 and Wang is the first Chinese woman to win it.
The only two women honored before her were Maryam Mirzakhani of Iran in 2014 and Maryna Viazovska of Ukraine in 2022.
Wang graduated from Peking University in 2011, took a master's at Paris-Saclay after entering France's École Polytechnique, and earned her doctorate at MIT in 2019 under Larry Guth. She teaches at New York University and has held a permanent professorship at France's Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques since September 2025.
CNN reported the win was hailed across China as a milestone in the country's bid to cement its role as a science and technology power, with the two top trending topics on Weibo the next morning both discussing it.
