Professor James Maynard has been named one of four recipients of the 2022 Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics for those under 40.

The Fields Medal recognises outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement. Often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, the Fields Medal is awarded every four years to recipients under the age of forty.

Professor James Maynard, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford has been awarded a 2022 Fields Medal for his ‘spectacular contributions’ to analytic number theory, ‘which have led to major advances in the understanding of the structure of prime numbers and in Diophantine approximation’.

‘It means a huge amount to win such a prestigious prize and to have this sort of recognition from my colleagues around the world. It feels a bit surreal imagining my name alongside giants of mathematics that I read about as a child,’ said Professor Maynard.