From Asylum Seeker to Fields Medal Winner at Cambridge

Caucher Birkar – from asylum seeker to Fields Medal winner at Cambridge
He grew up in a Kurdish peasant family in a war zone and arrived in Nottingham as a refugee – now Caucher Birkar has received the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel prize. By Tom Whipple

Caucher Birkar, 41, at Cambridge UniversityJude EdgintonThe Times, April 6 2019, 12:01am
Nineteen years ago, the mathematics department at the University of Nottingham received an email from an asylum seeker who wanted to talk to someone about algebraic geometry. So it was that, shortly afterwards, Caucher Birkar, the 21-year-old son of a Kurdish peasant family, stood in front of Ivan Fesenko, a professor at Nottingham, and began speaking in broken English.

Source: www.thetimes.co.uk