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JWR VerifiedJWR-2026-000190

First Jewish Fields Medalist

Record holder

Jesse DouglasPerson

Record value

14 July 1936

Country represented: United StatesAchievement location: Oslo, Norway, United StatesAchievement date: 14 July 1936Current record

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Portrait of mathematician Jesse Douglas around 1932.

Jesse Douglas, circa 1932.Technique 1932 / MIT / Wikimedia CommonsSourcePublic domain

Official record definition

The earliest Jewish mathematician to receive a Fields Medal.

Measurement methodology

Chronology of Fields Medal awards combined with Jewish-biographical verification of the inaugural laureates.

Measurement point: Opening session of the 1936 International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo on 14 July 1936, when the inaugural Fields Medals were presented to Jesse Douglas and Lars Ahlfors.

Record story

Jesse Douglas became the first Jewish Fields Medalist when he received one of the two inaugural Fields Medals at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo in 1936. Douglas shared the distinction of belonging to the first-ever Fields Medal cohort with Finnish mathematician Lars Ahlfors. The medals were presented at the opening session on 14 July 1936. Douglas was honored for major work in the calculus of variations and, above all, for solving the classical Plateau problem concerning the existence of minimal surfaces spanning a prescribed boundary. Because the Fields Medal did not exist before the 1936 Congress, no recipient could precede Douglas chronologically. JWR combines the International Mathematical Union’s official inaugural-medalist record with biographical sources documenting Douglas’s Jewish identity. The exact presentation date, 14 July 1936, is used as the record value.

How JWR verified this record

Verification date
26 September 2026
Verification standard
JWR Verification Standard 1.0

Achievement evidence

The International Mathematical Union lists Jesse Douglas among the two inaugural 1936 Fields Medalists; the medals were presented at the opening session on 14 July 1936.

Superiority evidence

Douglas belongs to the inaugural Fields Medal cohort, so no earlier recipient exists; Jewish-source review identifies him as Jewish.

Jewish Eligibility — Verified by JWR

Jewish eligibility verification

Evidence establishing that the holder qualifies as Jewish for JWR purposes.

  • Jewish Recipients of the Fields Medal — JINFO

Achievement / record verification

Evidence establishing that the holder achieved the result and holds the record as defined.

  • Fields Medal — List of Laureates — International Mathematical Union
  • Portrait of Jesse Douglas in c. 1932 — Wikimedia Commons

Superiority / counter-candidate verification

Evidence comparing the result with other candidates relevant to the record claim.

  • The 1936 International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo — MacTutor History of Mathematics

Jewish eligibility, achievement and superiority evidence retain their separate classifications and are never merged. Context and provenance are not presented as proof of the achievement. Restricted evidence and internal research notes are never published. Learn more about the seven-stage process on the verification page.

Sources & Verification

History

  1. Verified

    Verified according to JWR Verification Standard 1.0.

  2. Publishedv1

    Published to the official JWR registry.

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