From Poetry to Mathematics this is a fascinating sketch of June Huh's journey to the pinnacle of mathematics (IAS appointment, Field medal contender) in 9 years, from when he first got interested in mathematics at age 24 to the present, aged 34.

The striking point: often the introduction of a new way of looking at an old problem, using mathematics from far afield, holds the key. In this case, Huh (aspiring poet) and collaborators Katz and Adiprasato (aspiring chef), used methods in singularity theory and combinatorics to prove Rota's conjecture: that the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial for any matroid are always log concave.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-path-less-taken-to-the-peak-of-the-math-world-20170627/