Marina Serhiivna Vyazovska is a Ukrainian mathematician, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (2010), Doctor of Natural Sciences (2013), and international member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (2025).
Place of Birth, Education
She was born on December 2, 1984, in Kyiv, into a family of engineers. As a child, she was interested in science fiction.
She attended Kyiv Natural Sciences Lyceum No. 145, where she studied mathematics under Andriy Knyazuk, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences.
From 2002 to 2005, she was a multiple medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad for Students.
From 2001 to 2006, she studied at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 2005, and in 2006, a specialist degree.
From 2006 to 2009, she was a graduate student at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
While pursuing her research, she also enrolled in a master’s program at the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany, where she earned her master’s degree in 2007.
On May 11, 2010, she defended her Ph.D. dissertation at the Institute of Mathematics of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of Ukraine on the topic “Inequalities for Polynomials and Rational Functions and Quadrature Formulas on the Sphere.”
Career
Vyazovska’s first scientific publications, which were co-authored, appeared in 2005 and 2006.
In 2013, she received her Ph.D. in natural sciences from the University of Bonn. Her dissertation, titled “Modular Functions and Special Cycles,” focused on analytic number theory.
In early 2016, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Berlin Mathematical School and at Humboldt University of Berlin.
In December, she was invited to join the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) as an associate professor. A year later, she was promoted to professor and later became head of the Department of Number Theory at EPFL.
In 2019, Vyazovska, together with a team of mathematicians, solved an equation describing the arrangement of an infinite number of points repelling one another in 8- and 24-dimensional spaces.
Vyazovskaya is also known for her research on spherical designs. She proved Korevaara and Meyers’ hypothesis regarding the existence of small structures in any dimension.
The Ball-Packing Problem
One of the most famous mathematical problems that Vyazovska worked on is the ball-packing problem. Its history dates back to the late 16th century, when English mathematicians sought to find the most efficient way to stow cannonballs on ships of the British fleet. Eventually, the problem was included in the list of the 23 most important unsolved problems compiled in 1900 by the mathematician David Hilbert.
In 2016, Vyazovskaya solved the problem of packing spheres in eight-dimensional space, and later, in collaboration with others, in twenty-four-dimensional space as well. Until then, the problem had only been solved for spaces with three or fewer dimensions. The proof for the three-dimensional case was about 300 pages long and required more than 50,000 lines of code. Vyazovska’s solution for eight-dimensional space fit into just 23 pages.
In 2016, Vyazovskaya was awarded the prestigious Salem Prize for her work on the densest packing of spheres in 8- and 24-dimensional spaces using modular forms.
In April 2017, she received an award from the Clay Mathematics Institute for her achievements in solving the ball-packing problem. That same year, she was also honored with the Ramanujan Prize, awarded by SASTRA University in India.
In 2022, for solving the problem of the densest packing of spheres in eight-dimensional space, Vyazovska was awarded one of the highest honors in the world of mathematics—the Fields Medal.
Vyazovska planned to use the 15,000 Canadian dollars she received as a prize to support Ukraine. During her speech at the Fields Medal award ceremony at the International Congress of Mathematicians, she spoke about the full-scale war and the crimes committed by the Russian occupiers. She also paid tribute to the memory of math teacher Yulia Zdanovska, who was killed during the Russian bombing of Kharkiv.
On May 5, 2025, Marina Vyazovska, along with climatologist Svitlana Krakovska, was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.
Marital Status
Vyazovska is married to Danil Yevtushynsky, a physicist at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne. The couple has known each other since their school days—they attended Kyiv Lyceum No. 145 together.
The couple has two children.
