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Maryam Mirzakhani

Researchers / independent engineers · Science/Research · milestone at age 17 ·T1 Global icon

Milestone (age 17)

Won a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1994 at age 17, becoming the first Iranian woman to do so, and followed with a perfect-score gold medal in 1995.

Mirzakhani grew up in Tehran and attended the NODET school for exceptional talents. She and friend Roya Beheshti made the Iranian Mathematical Olympiad team in 1994, where she won gold; she repeated with a perfect 42/42 score in 1995. She then studied at Sharif University of Technology before pursuing a PhD at Harvard under Curtis McMullen.

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Starting point

Born in Tehran, Iran; family background not documented in reviewed sources beyond her attendance at a NODET school for exceptional talents.

Current position (2017 · deceased)

Died on July 14, 2017 at age 40 in Stanford, California; was a professor at Stanford University and the first woman to win the Fields Medal (2014).

How this path compounded

01 Starting advantages

8/24 starting-position score

Strongest documented signals: Elite institution pipeline, Prodigy / innate ability, Frontier geography.

Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.

Cohort percentile: 74

02 Built or converted leverage

13/25 multiplying-capacity score

Strongest observed levers:Started serious reps before 20, Prior reps, Scarce skill depth.

Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.

Cohort percentile: 55

03 Compounding trajectory

7 documented steps

The timeline below shows the sequence of work and transitions around the selected early milestone. It is evidence of a path, not proof that every step was necessary.

Milestone at age 17

04 Observed career standing

T1 · Global icon

Legendary or globally iconic career standing. The tier summarizes documented career recognition through the data cutoff—not Maryam Mirzakhani's worth or future potential.

How tiers work →

Question four · where did the leverage come from?

Maryam Mirzakhani's leverage provenance

Each non-zero lever gets a best-supported origin, evidence signals, and confidence. Unresolved is the honest default when the biography cannot distinguish self-built, advantage-enabled, earned, external, or mixed.

Started serious reps before 201/1

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Dedicated mentor / coach (1/2)Elite institution pipeline (2/2)

Prior reps2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Dedicated mentor / coach (1/2)Elite institution pipeline (2/2)

Scarce skill depth2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Dedicated mentor / coach (1/2)Elite institution pipeline (2/2)

Elite ecosystem network2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Elite institution pipeline (2/2)Frontier geography (1/2)Exceptional peer / cofounder (1/2)

Concentration intensity2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Dedicated mentor / coach (1/2)Adversity / constraint catalyst (1/2)

Complementary team1/2

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Exceptional peer / cofounder (1/2)Elite institution pipeline (2/2)

Capital safety1/2

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Elite institution pipeline (2/2)

Domain proximity1/2

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Frontier geography (1/2)Elite institution pipeline (2/2)

Structural wave / timing1/3

Externalmedium confidence

A structural wave is external to the person, even when their position improved access to it.

Frontier geography (1/2)

This is a bounded inference from the current annotations—not a claim about private effort, merit, or the percentage of Maryam Mirzakhani's outcome attributable to any origin.

Luck is not a leftover score.

Structural luck, Encounter luck, Event luck, Outcome variance can change every arrow in the path. This successful-only dataset cannot observe the near-identical paths that did not break through, so luck stays visible and unscored.

Within Researchers / independent engineers, Maryam Mirzakhani's starting-advantage total is at the 74th percentile. Separately, their built or converted leverage total is at the 55th percentile. Other T1 profiles average 8.9 / 24 starting advantage and 13.6 / 25 leverage. Similar scores appear in other tiers, so these figures describe positioning—not a cause.

Trajectory

1994 · age 17
Won gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Hong Kong
The first Iranian woman to do so.
1995 · age 18
Won a second IMO gold medal
A perfect 42/42 score in Toronto.
1999 · age 22
Co-authored the book 'Elementary Number Theory
Challenging Problems' in Persian with Roya Beheshti.
2004 · age 27
Completed PhD at Harvard under Curtis McMullen
Hyperbolic geometry and moduli spaces.
2009 · age 32
Awarded the Blumenthal Award for promising young mathematicians.
2014 · age 37
Became the first woman and first Iranian to win the Fields Medal
The highest honor in mathematics.
2017 · age 40
Died on July 14, 2017 in Stanford
California, after a battle with breast cancer.

Primary leverage engine

Technical depth

Scarce technical / intellectual depth

Secondary engine

Early specialization

Built/converted leverage

13 / 25

evidence: Medium

Built or converted leverage

Multiplying capacity documented later in the path. Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.

Started serious reps before 20

1/1

Prior reps

2/3

Scarce skill depth

2/3

Native distribution

0/3

Elite ecosystem network

2/3

Complementary team

1/2

Structural wave / timing

1/3

Concentration intensity

2/3

Capital safety

1/2

Domain proximity

1/2

Starting-advantage scores (0–2 each)

Access or conditions documented near the beginning of the path. Zero means "no clear evidence in reviewed sources," not "advantage was absent."

Family financial platform

0/2

Parent / family domain

0/2

Inherited audience / network

0/2

Elite institution pipeline

2/2

Frontier geography

1/2

Rare early tools

0/2

Dedicated mentor / coach

1/2

Exceptional peer / cofounder

1/2

Early online platform

0/2

Direct domain exposure

0/2

Prodigy / innate ability

2/2

Adversity / constraint catalyst

1/2

Family context

Not documented in reviewed sources beyond her birth in Tehran, Iran.

Parent / family domain

Not documented in reviewed sources.

Archetype & tags

Elite performance pipelineNODET schoolIMO pipelineprodigySharif UniversityHarvard

Evidence summary

Mirzakhani attended Tehran's Farzanegan School (NODET), a pipeline for exceptional talents. She won IMO gold at 17 (1994) and a perfect-score gold at 18 (1995), making her the first Iranian woman to achieve this. She then studied at Sharif University before her Harvard PhD (2004). Her rare mathematical ability was evident early, and the Iranian Olympiad pipeline provided structured opportunity. Family background is not documented in reviewed sources.

advantage confidence: Medium · source count: 3 · audit: not_independently_audited · status: subagent_researched_beta

Sources

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