Hong Wang

The native form of this personal name is Wang Hong. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

In this Chinese name, the family name is Wang (王).

Hong Wang (Chinese: 王虹; pinyin: Wáng Hóng; born 1991) is a Chinese mathematician who works in Fourier analysis and geometric measure theory. She received the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize in 2022.

Hong Wang
王虹
Wang in 2024
Born	1991 (age 33–34) Guilin, Guangxi, China
Education	Peking University Ecole Polytechnique Paris-Sud University (MSc) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Known for	Solving the Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions
Awards	Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize (2022)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Institute for Advanced Study University of California, Los Angeles Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (current) Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques
Doctoral advisor	Larry Guth
Website	sites.google.com/view/hongwang/home

Early life and education

Wang was born in Guilin, Guangxi, China, in 1991. Her parents are both teachers at a secondary school in Pingle County. She skipped two grades during primary school. In 2004, she attended Guilin High School [zh]. In 2007, 16-year-old Wang gained early admission to Peking University's School of Earth and Space Sciences with a score of 653 in the Gaokao. After a year, she transferred to the School of Mathematical Sciences.^[1] She received an undergraduate degree in mathematics at Peking University in 2011. In 2014, she graduated with dual degrees: an engineering degree (diplôme d'ingénieur) at École polytechnique and a master's degree from Paris-Sud University.^[2][3] In 2019, she received a PhD in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision of Larry Guth.^[2]

Career

Wang was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 2019 to 2021.^[2][4] She then joined University of California, Los Angeles as an assistant professor of mathematics.^[5] She is currently an associate professor at the New York University Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.^[6] On 1 September 2025, Wang joined the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques as a Permanent Professor of Mathematics.^[7]

On 24 February 2025, Wang and her collaborator Joshua Zahl posted an arXiv preprint "Volume estimates for unions of convex sets, and the Kakeya set conjecture in three dimensions" claiming to solve the Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions. The general Kakeya conjecture has been described by Terence Tao as "one of the most sought-after open problems in geometric measure theory". The claimed proof is considered to be a breakthrough in geometric measure theory.^[6][8][9]

Awards and honors

Wang was a 2022 recipient of the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize, given "for advances on the restriction conjecture, the local smoothing conjecture, and related problems".^[2][5][10]