Voisin, who is based at the Jussieu Institute of Mathematics in Paris, studies algebraic geometry, a field of research concerning geometric figures ' called varieties ' that are defined by algebraic equations. The prototypical example is the equation x2 + y2 = 1, which defines a circle. She has been described as the world's foremost expert on the still-unsolved Hodge conjecture, an algebraic-geometry problem that concerns the nature of the varieties that are contained inside a larger variety. The conjecture is one of the Millennium Prize Problems ' seven mathematical questions that each carry a US$1-million prize for the first person to solve them. No. Since I do mathematics, I have always been the first woman to do this, or to do that. Sometimes I feel that the media, each time they speak about me, say, 'the first woman who ''. Personally, I think it's not good to put emphasis on that. For me, I am just a mathematician. I am happy if people appreciate the mathematics that I am...
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