The Tan Kah Kee Science and Young Scientist Award are named after the well-known patriotic overseas Chinese Mr. Tan Kah Kee who has made remarkable contributions to the development of China's science and education. The Science Award was established in 2003 aiming at rewarding important original scientific and technological achievements with independent intellectual property right while the Science Award in 2010 to reward the young talents(under 40 years old) in science and technology to motivate them to be dedicated to national science and technology innovation.

SHEN Baogen (732), graduating from the Department of Physics USTC in 1976, now assumes researcher in Institute of Physics CAS, doctoral tutor, deputy director of the Center of Condensed Matter Physics CAS, director of the State Key Laboratory of Magnetics, deputy chief expert in the National Key Basic Research and Development Plan(973) ‘Basic Research into Rare Earth Functional Materials’ and director of Applied Magnetic Branch of Chinese Institute of Electronics, director of Chinese Physical Society, Secretary General of magnetic branch, member of editorial board for 6 magazines including Journal of Physics. In 1995, Shen won the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholar then was ranked Young and Middle-aged Experts with Outstanding Contribution by CAS in 1996, and awarded Outstanding Young Scholar Award in the third Qiushi Technology Foundation, YE Qisun Physics prize of Chinese Physical Society as well many others. In 2011 he was elected academician of CAS and TWAS in Oct.2013. He won the the Tan Kah Kee Science Award due to the Discovery and Mechanism Research of a new type of LaFeSi Giant Magnetocaloric Material.

LI Xuelong (9406), bachelor, and PhD of USTC, has long been engaged in research into image and video processing and pattern recognition. He is now a researcher in Xi'an Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics of CAS and a doctoral tutor. Currently Li holds deputy director of Transient Optics and Photonics of State Key Laboratory, deputy director of CAS Key Laboratory of Spectral Imaging Technology, director of OPTIMAL, deputy secretary general for Association of One Thousand Talented People, member of All-China Youth Federation, Distinguished Expert for the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. Li has been elected IEEE Fellow, IAPR Fellow, OSA Fellow, SPIE Fellow, IET/IEE Fellow, BCS Fellow, HEA Fellow, IEAS Academician, and GYA Member. In 2009, he was selected the One Thousand Talented People and won the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young in 2011. In 2012 Li was awarded the Medal of China Youth. His research into the visual data decomposition and dimension reduction is vital to improve the quality and retrieval of remote sensing image, which won him the Tan Kah Kee Science and Young Scientist Award.

LIU Lei ( 9500 ), received bachelor’s degree from USTC in 1999 and Ph.D. in 2004 from Columbia University, US, with Breslow as his tutor, a world-renowned expert and academician in bio-organic chemistry, then became a post doctorate at the Scripps Research Institute with Chi-Huey Wong as his co-advisor (President of Academia Sinica, Taiwan) . In 2007, he was recruited in the Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University. His discovery of new reaction of Protein hydrazide connection which made important contribution to efficient protein synthesis won him the Tan Kah Kee Young Scientist Award for Chemical Sciences.

The Tan Kah Kee Science and Young Scientist Award are conducted once every two years with synchronization in recommendations, evaluation and awarding with six different awards: for Mathematical Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Life Science, Earth Science, Information technology science and Technology Science.

Since its founding, the Tan Kah Kee Science and the Young Scientist Award have established high reputation and exerted widespread impact at home and abroad in science, promoting innovation and development of science and technology. From 2006 to 2012, a total of five professors and alumni have been awarded, Tan Kah Kee Science for RAO Zihe ( 732 ) , HOU Jianguo ( 782 ) , BAI Yilong ( 585 ), amid whom PENG Chengzhi ( 9304 ) and WANG Yuming ( 9507 ) was the first Tan Kah Kee Young Scientist Award winner.

(ZHU Xiaocao, USTC News Center)