How Peking University Became a Global Powerhouse in Mathematics

July 23–30, 2026: The 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) was held in Philadelphia, United States. At the opening ceremony on July 23, the recipients of the 2026 Fields Medal​ were officially announced. Four mathematicians—Hong Wang, Yu Deng, John Pardon, and Jacob Tsimerman—received the award. Among them, Hong Wang and Yu Deng are Chinese mathematicians, making China the first country in Asia to produce two Fields Medalists in the same ICM.

Notably, Hong Wang and Yu Deng are both alumni of the Class of 2007 in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University​. The School has long been regarded as the "premier department of China's premier university." At this year's ICM, 14 Peking University faculty members and alumni were invited to deliver lectures, setting a new institutional record and accounting for more than half of all invited talks by Chinese scholars.

Each ICM features approximately 200 invited speakers, who present major advances and breakthroughs in their respective fields. These invited lectures represent the highest level of contemporary mathematical research. Being invited to speak at the ICM is considered one of the highest academic honors in mathematics and serves as an important mark of international recognition.

With alumni Hong Wang and Yu Deng receiving the Fields Medal and 14 faculty members and alumni delivering invited lectures, Peking University made an outstanding showing at the 2026 ICM, highlighting its leading role on the international mathematical stage and its exceptional strength in cultivating world-class mathematical talent.

The 14 Invited Speakers

Songxi Chen

Songxi Chen received his B.S. (1983) and M.S. (1988) in Mathematics from Beijing Normal University, and his Ph.D. in Statistics from the Australian National University in 1993. He previously served as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University, Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, and tenured Associate Professor and Professor at Iowa State University. He joined Peking University in 2008, holding appointments in both the Guanghua School of Management and the School of Mathematical Sciences. In 2021, he was elected a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on ultrahigh-dimensional statistics, environmental statistics, and nonparametric statistical methods. At the ICM, he delivered a 45-minute invited lecture titled "Signal Detection in High-Dimensional Statistics."

Xinyi Yuan

Xinyi Yuan studied at the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University, from 2000 to 2003, earning his B.S. in Mathematics, and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2008. He was a Clay Research Fellow (2008–2011), Assistant Professor at Princeton University (2011–2012), Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (2012–2020), before returning to Peking University as Professor in 2020. His research interests include number theory and arithmetic geometry, particularly Arakelov geometry, algebraic dynamical systems, Diophantine geometry, Shimura varieties, and special values of L-functions. His ICM lecture was titled "Quantitative Questions in the Mordell Conjecture."

Xin Sun

Xin Sun earned his B.S. from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University (2007–2011), and his Ph.D. from MIT in 2017. He subsequently spent three years as a Simons Fellow at Columbia University. In 2020, he joined the University of Pennsylvania as Assistant Professor, spent 2022–2023 as a visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), and returned full-time to Peking University in 2023. He is currently Professor at the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research (BICMR). His research centers on probability theory and mathematical physics, with emphasis on random geometry, statistical physics, and quantum field theory. His ICM lecture was "Liouville Quantum Gravity: From Random Planar Maps to Conformal Field Theory."

Junyi Xie

Junyi Xie received his undergraduate degree from the University of Science and Technology of China, pursued graduate studies at the École Normale Supérieure and Université Paris Diderot, and earned his Ph.D. from the École Polytechnique in 2014. He left a tenured position at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 2021 to join BICMR at Peking University. His research spans arithmetic dynamics, Diophantine geometry, algebraic geometry, and complex dynamics. His ICM lecture was "Rigidity in Complex Dynamics: Multiplier Spectra and the Dynamical André–Oort Conjecture."

Yongchang Zhu

Yongchang Zhu studied at the Department of Mathematics, Peking University (1980–1984), earning his B.S., and received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1990. After graduation, he held positions at Caltech, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. His research covers conformal field theory, loop groups, and automorphic forms. His ICM lecture was "Automorphic Forms on Loop Groups and Explicit Constructions."

Feng Xu

Feng Xu earned both his B.S. and M.S. from the Department of Mathematics, Peking University (1984–1990), and later completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Early in his career, he participated in the Chern Study Program in the United States. His research focuses on mathematical physics. He was a plenary speaker at the 2021 International Congress on Mathematical Physics. His ICM lecture was "Entropy in Quantum Field Theory."

Jianfeng Lu

Jianfeng Lu received his B.S. from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University (2001–2005), and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Princeton University in 2009. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University (2009–2012). He is currently the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor at Duke University, with joint appointments in Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry. His research lies at the intersection of computational physics, theoretical chemistry, materials science, high-dimensional partial differential equations, and machine learning. His ICM lecture was "Quantitative Hypocoercivity Estimates for the Underdamped Langevin Equation."

Lin Lin

Lin Lin earned his B.S. from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University (2003–2007), and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Princeton University in 2011. He is Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research focuses on mathematical modeling and numerical methods for quantum many-body problems, advancing interdisciplinary research in quantum chemistry, quantum physics, materials science, and quantum information. His ICM lecture was "Mathematics and Numerical Analysis of Quantum Signal Processing."

Yu Deng

Yu Deng studied at the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University (2007–2009), before transferring to MIT, where he completed his bachelor's degree in mathematics. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2015. He previously held positions as a postdoctoral researcher at the Courant Institute, Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California, and joined the University of Chicago in 2024. His research focuses on partial differential equations, particularly dispersive equations, and their interactions with probability theory and mathematical physics, especially statistical physics, kinetic theory, and quantum field theory. His ICM lecture was "Hilbert's Sixth Problem: Particles and Waves."

Yunqing Tang

Yunqing Tang earned her B.S. from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University (2007–2011), and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2016. She has held positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay, and Princeton University before joining the University of California, Berkeley as Associate Professor in 2022. Her ICM lecture was "Integrality Bounds and Diophantine Approximation."

Hong Wang

Hong Wang entered Peking University in 2007, initially enrolling in the School of Earth and Space Sciences before transferring to the School of Mathematical Sciences in 2008. She received her B.S. in Mathematics in 2011, earned both the Diplôme d'Ingénieur from the École Polytechnique and a master's degree from Université Paris-Saclay in 2014, and completed her Ph.D. at MIT in 2019. After a postdoctoral appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study, she joined UCLA as Assistant Professor in 2021. She is currently Silver Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, and a permanent Professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES). Her ICM lecture was "Restricted Orthogonal Projections."

Ruixiang Zhang

Ruixiang Zhang earned his B.S. from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University (2008–2012), and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2017. After postdoctoral appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he joined the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on Fourier analysis, analytic number theory, and additive combinatorics. His ICM lecture was "Where Can Free Waves Concentrate?"

Junliang Shen

Junliang Shen received his B.S. from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University (2009–2013), and his Ph.D. from ETH Zurich in 2018. He served as a C.L.E. Moore Instructor at MIT (2018–2021) before joining Yale University as Assistant Professor in 2021 and being promoted to Associate Professor in 2025. His research interests include Gromov–Witten theory, moduli spaces, and derived algebraic geometry. His ICM lecture was "The Topology of Abelian Fibrations."

Ziquan Zhuang

Ziquan Zhuang earned his B.S. from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University (2010–2014), and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2019. He was a C.L.E. Moore Instructor at MIT (2019–2022) and is currently Professor of Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on algebraic geometry, particularly singularity theory, the minimal model program, and birational geometry. His ICM lecture was "Local Volumes of klt Singularities and K-Stability."

Explore More from ICM 2026

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Where Have Fields Medalists Studied and Worked?​

ICM 2026 Announces Fields Medal and Major IMU Award Winners​

The List of Speakers at ICM 2026​