Bai Chunli To Lead The Chinese Academy Of Sciences

Prof. BAI Chunli (白春礼), a chemist and nanoscientist by training, has been appointed as president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

AsianScientist (Mar. 19, 2011) — Prof. Bai Chunli (白春礼), a chemist and nanoscientist by training, has been appointed as president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Prof. Bai succeeded Prof. Lu Yongxiang as the new leader of China’s major think-tank and research institution.

Born in 1953 in Dandong, Liaoning Province, Prof. Bai earned a doctorate at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Chemistry. From 1985 to 1987, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology’s jet propulsion laboratory. After he returned to China in 1987, he continued his research at the CAS Institute of Chemistry. From 1991 to 1992, he worked as a visiting professor at Tohoku University in Japan.

His research areas include the structure and properties of polymer catalysts, X-ray crystallography of organic compounds, molecular mechanics, and EXAFS research on electro-conducting polymers. In the mid-1980s, he shifted his research to the fields of scanning tunneling microscopy and molecular nanotechnology. In March 1989, Bai’s research group developed China’s first atomic force microscope, which was used to observe the surface structure of several conductors, semi-conductors and insulators.

Prof. Bai’s notable achievements include being elected as Member of CAS and Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) in 1997. He is also a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and Foreign Member of Russian Academy of Sciences, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and Honorary Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and honorary doctor or professor of several foreign universities.

Prof. Bai serves as the Chief Scientist for the National Steering Committee for Nanoscience and Technology and was the Founding Director of China National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. He is also a member of the International Editorial Advisory Board of JACS, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Materials and Chemical Physics Letters.

On March 24, 2011, Prof. Bai was interviewed by Nature Publishing Group about the future of Chinese research, his views on basic and translational research, and how China intends to collaborate other countries. He discusses the need for reform in allocation of funding, as well as the role of CAS in policing scientific fraud and misconduct.

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Source: Chinese Academy Of Sciences.
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