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Crowds of international delegates gathered around Caucher Birkar following his plenary presentation at Riocentro this afternoon. Everyone wanted a photo with the Kurdish mathematician, who was awarded a Fields Medal for his contribution to the minimum model program in algebraic geometry last Wednesday.

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Dressed in his signature blue suit and green lavallière tie, 2010 Fields medalist Cédric Villani delivered a public lecture that explained how scientists eventually determined the correct age of the earth. Since winning the Fields medal, Villani, a French national, has become a public intellectual and politician. Amongst mathematicians, he is known for his work on partial differential equations, Riemannian geometry, and mathematical physics. His 2016 Ted Talk, “What’s so sexy about math,” has been viewed more than 1.7 million times on the Ted website. In 2017 he was elected to the French National Assembly.

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Described by colleagues as a giant in his field, Professor Ronald Coifman addressed an eager audience this morning at the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians. “My goal today is to describe the delusion of harmonic analysis from its inception,” he told the crowd in his opening comments.

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Peter Kronheimer (UK) and Tomasz Mrowka (USA) are studying the applications of 3- and 4-dimensional topology. This morning at ICM 2018, they jointly presented the plenary session titled “Knots, three-manifolds and instants”, where they united prevailing theories that underlie unknot detection and visualization. Using the new developments of the Yang-Mills theory and gauge theory, they highlighted the productive conclusions gathered in the fields of 3-dimensional topology and knot theory.

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Catherine Goldstein is making her mark developing a social history of mathematics. The French number theorist and historian is now directing her efforts at analyzing and unveiling the structure and circulation of mathematical knowledge – no simple task. The history of mathematics is often portrayed as a series of big discoveries. As a historian, she is often asked questions such as, ‘Did Charles Hermite invent Hermitian forms?’ In her plenary lecture, “Long-term history and ephemeral configurations,” today at ICM 2018, she said that there is rarely a straightforward answer.

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Transitioning from the isolating world of mathematical abstraction to stardom can be quite startling. A crowd of fans gathered around the somewhat reserved Fields Medal winner Akshay Venkatesh this afternoon during his autograph session. “A lot of people want to talk to me now. It’s not something we’re used to,” Venkatesh said quietly. A queue of people anxious to meet the Fields medalist quickly formed and, despite his anxieties, he greeted and took pictures with dozens of enthusiasts with a friendly disposition and a smile on his face.

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The Committee for Women in Mathematics of the International Math Union recently released a documentary, “Journey of Women in Mathematics,” featuring the stories of mathematicians Neela Natara (India), Aminatou Pecha Njiahouo (Cameroon) and Carolina Araujo (Brazil). The documentary shows how these women achieved their success, and how they balance it with family responsibilities.

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