Prof Shing-Tung Yau
Shing-Tung Yau was born in Shantou, China. After he studied mathematics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he went to the University of California, Berkeley in 1969. At the age of 22, Yau was awarded the Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Shiing-Shen Chern. After a year as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and two years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he went to Stanford University. Since 1987, he has been a Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. Since 2013, he is also appointed a Professor of Physics at Harvard.
Yau’s work is in geometry in the broadest sense. He was the first person to combine differential geometry and analysis, and used their interaction to solve longstanding problems in both subjects. Yau’s work opened up new directions, set foundations and changed people’s perspectives towards mathematics and their applications in physics and computer science. For example, his proof of the positive energy theorem in general relativity demonstrated—sixty years after its discovery—that Einstein’s theory is consistent and stable. His proof of the Calabi conjecture gave solutions of multiple well-known open problems in algebraic geometry and also allowed physicists to show that string theory is a viable candidate for a unified theory of nature. Calabi–Yau manifolds are among the ‘standard toolkit’ for string theorists today.
Professor Yau also spends an enormous amount of energy to train young mathematicians at every level. For example, he has supervised over sixty-six Ph. D. students, and is deeply involving in reaching out to the general public about the role of mathematics in the modern society. Professor Yau has been directors of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Morningside Center of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Center of Mathematical Sciences in Zhejiang University. In December 2009, Shing-Tung Yau was invited to serve as the inaugural director of the Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University. In 2011, Prof. Shing-Tung Yau became Principal Professor for the Math Project of “Tsinghua University Training Program”, guiding the construction of the Math Project.
Prizes and Awards
1981, Oswald Veblen Prize
1982, Fields Medal
1984, MacArthur Fellow
1994, Crafoord Prize
1997, United States National Medal of Science
2003, China International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Award
2010, Wolf Prize in Mathematics
2018，Marcel Grossmann Award
Intro
The great master of mathematics Shing-Tung Yau has a firm teaching belief that “cultivating and discovering talents should begin with high school students”. By introducing the organization and selection methods of international competition to China, he has established the S.-T. Yau High School Science Award since 2008.This competition is much different from the original science competitions: first, it is available to the global high school students; secondly, it requires the students to submit their research reports instead of writing the standard answers to the examination papers.
Ten years ago, the. S.-T. Yau High School Science Award only recognized student achievement in the field of mathematics . Over the years, a physics award, chemistry award, biology award, computer science award and economic and financial modeling award have been already established to make up of a complete scientific award system. The S.-T. Yau High School Science Award is designed to promote the development of scientific research amongst youth and to encourage talented and enthusiastic teenagers to explore the mysteries of science.
There are more than 5800 teams from 1200 schools taking part in the competition. The competition areas include 28 provinces in China, as well as many oversea areas, such as North America and Singapore. After the careful reviews from more than 200 scientists in the world, there are totally 306 students from 169 teams receiving the awards. More than half of the award-winning high school students are recommended to the world famous universities such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Harvard University, MIT, Yale University, Princeton University and so on.