Tasnim– Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed his deep sorrow at the death of world-renowned Iranian math genius Professor Maryam Mirzakhani.





In a message posted on Instagram on Saturday, Zarif said the passing of “the young Iranian genius and mathematics professor” has left all Iranians shaken.

The top Iranian diplomat also expressed condolences to the bereaved family of the late professor, to Iranians around the world, and to the country’s scientific community.



After a long battle with cancer, Professor Mirzakhani died at a hospital in the US on Saturday.

Mirzakhani had been diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago, a year before she set the record of the first ever woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal, also known as the Nobel Prize of mathematics.



The 40-year-old mathematician, a professor at Stanford University, was the first Iranian woman elected to the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in May 2016, in recognition of her “distinguished and continuing achievement in original research.”

With past honorees, including renowned physicist Albert Einstein, and inventors Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell, being a member of the organization is considered to be one of the highest achievements for scientists in the United States.