Two scientists from Beihang University, including Prof. Zhao Weisheng from the School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering and Prof. Chen Huawei from the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, won the 2021 XPLORER PRIZE announced on September 13. A total of 50 young scientists were among the list this year.
Zhao Weisheng is a professor, doctoral supervisor and currently dean of the School of Integrated Circuit Science & Engineering at Beihang University. He is also a fellow of IEEE, a member of the tenth Committee of China Association for Science and Technology, a Yangtze River Scholar of the Ministry of Education, and a member of the IEEE Fellow Selection Committee. He has been served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I-Regular Papers since 2020.
Prof. Zhao has long been engaged in the research of spintronics memory and logic devices, and established a multi-disciplinary research framework from device design, novel materials research to circuit design. He has verified the field-free switching of a perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction through the interplay of spin–orbit and spin-transfer torque (Nature Electronics 2018; IEDM 2019), making China reach the international advanced level in the field of third-generation spin chips with huge progress. In the recent five years, He has published more than 200 papers as the first or the corresponding author in Nature Electronics, Proceedings of the IEEE, etc., and 7 highly cited papers. The total citation in Google Scholar is over 12,000, and the h-index reaches 60. He has transferred over 30 issued patents to Huawei and other companies.
Chen Huawei is a professor, PhD supervisor and currently deputy dean of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation of Beihang University. Prof. Chen received his PhD degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan and once worked at the University of Wollongong, Australia and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He has been honored with the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, ISBE outstanding contribution award, and was selected as one of the China's top ten cutting-edge technology figures. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Mechanical Engineering, China Surface Engineering and other journals.
Prof. Chen‘s research mainly covers onbio-inspired functional surface, micro-nano manufacture technology, etc. He has discovered a novel continuous uni-directional liquid spreading mechanism, developed the gradient Taylor capillary rise theory, proposed the bionic anti-icing coating technology which has been applied in major projects, and published China’s first paper in the field of mechanical engineering in Nature. Prof. Chen works as the leader of more than 20 national and military projects. He is also the author of over 80 SCI/EI papers published in Nature, Nature Materials, etc.
Established in 2018, the XPLORER PRIZE is a public welfare award initiated by Tencent Foundation in partnership with leading scientists. It is one of the grant programs with the highest amount of funding for young scientists in China. Adhering to the principle of “looking into the future, rewarding the potential and encouraging the exploration”, the XPLORER PRIZE is awarded to young scientists aged 45 or below who are working full-time in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macao in basic science and frontier technology fields. No more than 50 winners are selected each year, and each winner will receive a total of 3 million RMB within five years.
Editor: Jia Aiping
Translator: Liang Xiaochun
