Roya Beheshti Zavareh – The Binary Star

Roya was Born in 1977 to Fatemeh and Heshmatollah Beheshti, at Esfahan, Iran. She was born with a twin sister, has a brother and another sister.
She attended a newly established Farzanegan School. This school was also where she met Maryam Mirzakhani. In 9th grade Roya attended ‘Math Camp’ organised for older students, allowed as an exception due to her talents.
In 10th grade she and Maryam became the first Iranian Women to attended the International Mathematics Olympiad.
Roya won the Silver Medal, and another Bronze Medal the next year.
Roya completed her B. S. in Mathematics from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran in 1999. She then went to MIT to do her PhD in Mathematics, which she earned at the age of 26 in 2003. Her thesis was on ‘Lines on Fano Hypersurfaces’ Roya’s focus is Algebraic geometry on which she has written almost a dozen publications. She has worked at Max-Planck-Institut fuer Mathematik, Queen’s University, and University of California, Berkeley. She is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Washington University. The many accomplishments of Roya stand as another proof of the role support systems play in one’s success. Roya’s teachers and siblings, all played an important role in her life.
For her parents she says: “Everything I accomplish in my life, I owe to them”.