Academia Sinica has selected 19 new academicians, the institution announced yesterday at its 34th Academician Convocation, which was delayed two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Incoming academician Chen Li-chyong (林麗瓊), one of four women selected, told reporters that her decision to return to Taiwan in 1994 had been greatly influenced by then-Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲).
Chen thanked her husband, Chen Kuei-hsien (陳貴賢), who is also an academician at the institution, for encouraging her to return to the country.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Chen Li-chyong said her return coincided with the beginning of a boom in the nation’s tech sector.
The success of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co is the result of joint efforts made at the time, she added.
Encouraging young people to devote themselves to scientific research, Chen Li-chyong said: “While young people have many options, science and technology is a significant underpinning that [society] cannot do without.”
“Taiwan’s [academic] environment is no worse than the US,” she said.
Female scientists, especially in physics, are quite rare, she said, adding that she hoped more women would understand and appreciate that the discipline is “fun.”
“After all, the crash of thunder, or cooking a meal, everything is about physics,” she said.
Chen Li-chyong said she is currently researching the use of semiconductors for synthesizing hydrocarbons from carbon dioxide.
The technology still has a low conversion rate of about 1 percent, but if that rate reaches 10 percent, it might enter commercial use and contribute to phasing out fossil fuels in the chemical and other sectors, she said.
Newly elected Academicians and Honorary Academicians :
Division of Mathematics and Physical Sciences (5)
1. Jane-Ling Wang (Distinguished Professor, University of California, Davis)
2. Mu-Tao Wang (Professor of Mathematics, Columbia University)
3. Li-Chyong Chen (Distinguished Research Fellow (CCMS, NTU) & Director (AI-Mat, NTU) & Professor (Phys. NTU)
4. Liu Chen (Emeritus Professor at Above Scale and Research Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California, Irvine.)
5. Jen-Chieh Peng (Professor of Physics, University of Illinois)
Division of Engineering Sciences(5)
1. Kai-Nan An (John and Posy Krehbiel Professor Emeritus, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science)
2. Shin-Tson Wu (Trustee Chair Professor, University of Central Florida)
3. Chung-Chieh (Jay) Kuo (University of Southern California, Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and William H. Hogue Professorship)
4. Tze-chiang Chen (IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM Fellow, Vice President of Strategy, Science and Technology, IBM Research)
5. Yu-Pen Su (Consultant, National Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST)
Division of Life Sciences (6)
1. Huey-Kang Sytwu (Vice President, National Health Research Institutes/Distinguished Investigator, National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, NHRI)
2. Joseph Ching-Ming Wu (Director, Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Simon H. Stertzer Professor of Medicine & Radiology)
3. Jaung-Geng Lin (Chair Professor at the China Medical University, Taiwan).
4. Hui-Kuan Lin (Anderson Professor for Cancer Research, Director of Prostate Cancer Center of Excellence, Director of Signaling and Biotechnology Program at Wake Forest School of Medicine)
5. Ming-Che Shih (Distinguished Research Fellow, Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center, Academia Sinica)
6. Tang K. Tang (Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica)
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (3)
1. Yiting Li (Distinguished Professor, National Taiwan University)
2. LEE, Fong-mao (Adjunct Research Follow at Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica/Emeritus Chair Professor, Graduate Institute of Religious Studies, National Chengchi University)
3. Wen-chin Ouyang ( Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature, SOAS, University of London)
Elected Honorary Academicians:
1. Edward Carroll Stone (David Morrisroe Professor of Physics; Vice Provost for Special Projects California Institute of Technology)
2. Tasuku Honjo (Professor, Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study)
3. Arthur Kleinman (Esther and Sidney Rabb professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Arts and Science, Harvard University)
Source: Academia Sinica
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week