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Yuan-Pern Lee, 2019, Presidential Science Prize
Former NSRRC BOT Member, Academician Yuan-Pern Lee, Named Recipients of Taiwan's 2019 Presidential Science Prize
    
2019/10/24
Academician Yuan-Pern Lee
Recipients of Taiwan's 2019 Presidential Science Prize was recently announced. Academician Yuan-Pern Lee, who served on the NSRRC Board of Trustee (BOT) from 2015 to 2018, stood out in the category of mathematics and physical sciences and received the prize. He is a notable NSRRC user, who uses synchrotron radiation to study the spectroscopy of free radicals.

Academician Lee graduated from Department of Chemistry at National Taiwan University, and earned his PhD degree in Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. He was elected by Academia Sinica to its 2008 class of Academician, and is currently a Chair Professor in Applied Chemistry at National Chiao Tung University. Over the course of his professional career, he has devoted his time and efforts into exploring and understanding physical chemistry, free radicals, dynamics, laser chemistry, and molecular kinetics. As an internationally renowned scholar, he has made tremendous contributions to science, discovering nearly 100 new free radicals and measuring their spectra. This information is invaluable to scientists in combustion, atmospheric and astronomical chemistry. Being one of the pioneers to develop “step-scan time-resolved Fourier-transform infrared emission spectroscopy,” he has detected many infrared spectra of free radicals which lifespans are extremely short in atmospheric chemistry. In order to overcome the molecular interactions in gas-phase experiments, he applies matrix-isolation technique to unstable intermediates at low temperature. He also develops new methods of protonation and hydrogenation to identify chemical species of the interstellar medium based on spectra obtained in laboratories.

Established in 2001, the biennial Presidential Science Prize recognizes innovative researchers who have outstanding achievements in the fields of mathematics and physical sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and applied sciences. According to the Eligibility and Selection Process of the Prize, the Committee is composed of 15 members, including the President of Academia Sinica as the chair, and the Minister of Science and Technology as the vice chair. It is considered the nation’s highest scientific honor.