As opposed to other scientific disciplines, in mathematics the norm for a student is not to have publications until late in their Ph.D., or even after graduation. When applying for fellowships or awards in which a mathematics graduate student competes with other scientific disciplines, this often places the mathematics graduate student at a disadvantage, unless a convincing argument can be made about what the norm in the field is.
To aid in such an argument, the graduate office at U of T has compiled the following publicly available information:
- There is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics. The two widely regarded as equivalent prizes are the Fields Medal, in which awardees have to be under 40 years of age, and the Abel Prize, for which there is no age limit.
- Considering only recent such awardees, all Fields medal and Abel prize winners since 2000 total 49. (The list is available in the links in the previous item, no cherry-picking, all are considered.)
- Of those 49, only 11 had their first publication more than 3 years before the end of their Ph.D. (and only 15 of those 49 had their first publication more than 2 years before the end of their Ph.D.)
- Their Ph.D. year can be obtained e.g. through the Mathematics Genealogy Project. Their publications can be obtained e.g. through Mathscinet
- Ideally one would look for the starting year of the Ph.D., but that information is much harder to find.
- This is a fortiori argument: among the recent absolutely most highly regarded mathematicians (colloquially speaking, absolute geniuses), only so few had an early publication (with respect to their Ph.D. graduation). How much more that should be the case for nearly all graduate students, even outstanding ones (colloquially speaking, mere mortals).
- Alternatively, if a panel does not award a mathematics graduate student a fellowship just for not having a publication early in the PhD or before entering the graduate program, that panel is essentially * not * awarding the fellowship to 38 Fields Medal and Abel prize winners out of all 49 since 2000.
- For convenience, we provide a spreadsheet containing the data mentioned for each one of those 49 remarkable mathematicians: Fields and Abel Prizes Winners