Maryna Viazovska, PhD, is a Ukrainian mathematician known for her work in sphere packing. Viazovska competed in domestic mathematics Olympiads when she was at high school, and was one of the first-place winners in the International Mathematics Competition for University Students in 2002 and 2005. She co-authored her first research paper in 2005. In 2016, Viazovska solved the sphere packing problem in dimension 8. The sphere packing problem has been studied by mathematicians for centuries, and has connections to a variety of fields including cryptography and communication. Before her breakthrough, the optimal sphere packing density was known only in one, two, and three dimensions. In collaboration with James Maynard, June Huh, and Hugo Duminil-Copin, Viazovska also solved the sphere packing problem in dimension 24. For this, in 2022 she was awarded the Fields Medal, one of the highest honors a mathematician can receive, described as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics. Viazovska has been a full professor and Chair of Number Theory at the Institute of Mathematics of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland since 2018.
