15 Facts About Akshay Venkatesh

Akshay Venkatesh was the first Australian to have won medals at both the International Physics Olympiad and International Mathematical Olympiad, which he did at the age of 12.

Akshay Venkatesh is the second Australian and the second person of Indian descent to win the Fields Medal.

Akshay Venkatesh was on the Mathematical Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2020.

Akshay Venkatesh was born in Delhi, India, and his family emigrated to Perth in Western Australia when he was two years old.

Akshay Venkatesh's mother, Svetha, is a computer science professor at Deakin University.

Akshay Venkatesh completed his secondary education the same year, turning 13 before entering the University of Western Australia as its youngest ever student.

Akshay Venkatesh completed the four-year course in three years and became, at 16, the youngest person to earn First Class Honours in pure mathematics from the university.

Akshay Venkatesh was awarded the J A Woods Memorial Prize as the most outstanding graduate of the year from the Faculties of Science, Engineering, Dentistry, or Medical Science.

Akshay Venkatesh commenced his PhD at Princeton University in 1998 under Peter Sarnak, which he completed in 2002, producing the thesis Limiting forms of the trace formula.

Akshay Venkatesh was supported by the Hackett Fellowship for postgraduate study.

Akshay Venkatesh then held a Clay Research Fellowship from the Clay Mathematics Institute from 2004 to 2006, and was an associate professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.

Akshay Venkatesh was a member of the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study from 2005 to 2006.

Akshay Venkatesh became a full professor at Stanford University on 1 September 2008.

Akshay Venkatesh was elected as a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, in the 2025 class of fellows.

Akshay Venkatesh has made contributions to a wide variety of areas in mathematics, including number theory, automorphic forms, representation theory, locally symmetric spaces and ergodic theory, by himself, and in collaboration with several mathematicians.