Core Viewpoint - The article highlights the recent appointment of Chinese mathematician Wang Hong, known for solving the Kakeya conjecture, as a permanent professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) in France, marking a significant achievement in her career and the mathematics community [1][2][10]. Group 1: Appointment Details - Wang Hong will officially join IHES on September 1, 2025, and will also hold a position as a mathematics professor at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences [6]. - IHES currently has only seven permanent professors, with five being prominent mathematicians, including two Fields Medal winners [3][4]. Group 2: Academic Background - Wang Hong was born in 1991 in Guilin, Guangxi, and demonstrated exceptional academic ability from a young age, entering Peking University at 16 [15]. - She obtained her bachelor's degree in mathematics in 2011, followed by an engineering degree from École Polytechnique and a master's degree from Paris XI University in 2014, and completed her PhD at MIT in 2019 [16]. Group 3: Research Contributions - Wang Hong, along with UBC mathematics associate professor Joshua Zahl, solved the Kakeya conjecture, a long-standing problem in mathematics that has implications across various fields such as harmonic analysis and number theory [10][12]. - The Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions asserts that a set containing unit-length line segments in every direction must have Minkowski and Hausdorff dimensions equal to three [11]. Group 4: Community Reception - The announcement of Wang Hong's appointment was met with enthusiasm in the mathematics community, with notable figures expressing their support and anticipation for her contributions [7][9]. - Many believe her recent achievement could position her as a strong candidate for the Fields Medal [14].