Established in 2013, the AWM Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize recognizes exceptional research in topology and geometry by a woman early in her career. The biennial presentation of this prize serves to highlight to the community outstanding contributions by women in the fields of topology and geometry and to advance the careers of the prize recipients. The award is made possible by a generous contribution from Joan and Joseph Birman.

The 2021 Joan & Joseph Birman Research Prize in Topology and Geometry is awarded to Emily Riehl for her deep and foundational work in category theory and homotopy theory. Riehl has proved many fundamental theorems in category theory and its relations to homotopy theory and has produced a large body of exceptional research as well as expository andpedagogical work. Her work is transforming the ways we work with higher categorical objects, drawing on classical category-theory tools and constructions to illustrate and simplify higher categorical constructions. Riehl's theorems and machinery beautifully showcase how these higher categorical constructions can often be viewed as intuitive generalizations of the ordinary ones. Her books on category theory and on homotopical category theory have become the standard
references, and her draft book on ∞-categories is already finding immediate use by researchers. Riehl is an internationally recognized scholar for her important research works in category theory and her innovative ideas about mentorship and communication of mathematics.