Yang Xueming, an academician the Chinese Academy of Sciences. [Photo/WeChat account: huzhoufabu]

Yang Xueming, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and two other scientists, Li Wenhui and Ngaiming Mok, were awarded the 2022 Future Science Prize, the first Chinese non-governmental science award jointly initiated by groups of scientists and entrepreneurs, on Aug 21.

Yang won the prize in physical sciences for developing new-generation molecular beam techniques with high resolution and sensitivity for state-resolved reaction dynamics studies that reveal quantum resonances and geometric phase effects in chemical reactions.

Born in Huzhou's Deqing county in October 1962, Yang graduated from the Physics Department of Zhejiang Normal University in 1982 before pursuing his master's degree at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1986.

He received his doctoral degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley, and a researcher in the Taiwan Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences before returning to the Chinese mainland.

As one of the world's leading experts in physical chemistry, Yang has numerous honors including the second prize of National Natural Science Award twice.

Founded in 2016, the Future Science Prize aims to advance research in basic science. It awards scientists who have made significant research achievements in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Twenty-seven scientists, including famous agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, physicist Xue Qikun and biologist Shi Yigong, have been awarded the prize so far.