The Fields Medal, awarded every four years at the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematics, is considered the highest honor a mathematician can receive. At each Congress, 2-4 medals are awarded, each to a mathematician under the age of 40. Recent winners include Grigori Perelman and Terence Tao.
Until Maryam Mirzakhani (an Iranian woman)[1] was awarded the prize, every recipient of the Fields Medal had been male.