Xie Xiaoliang went to Chicago in 1985 to study for a doctorate at the University of San Diego. After graduating with a Ph.D. in 1989, he went to the University of Chicago to do postdoctoral research. In 1999, Xie Xiaoliang was hired by Harvard University as a tenured professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. This is the first scientist from Chinese mainland hired by Harvard University since 1965.
Since then, Xie Xiaoliang has been doing research in the United States. Later, he was awarded the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Xie Xiaoliang, who has won three academicians in the United States, shows that he has made various outstanding achievements. He was even hailed as the closest Chinese to the Nobel Prize.
However, in 2018, Xie Xiaoliang returned to his alma mater, Peking University.
We know that due to the prejudices of Westerners and the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, it is very difficult for Chinese scientists working in China to win the Nobel Prize. Including scientists such as Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao, they have won the Nobel Prize because they are abroad. If they had returned to China and wanted to win the Nobel Prize, it would have been very difficult. For this point, I believe Xie Xiaoliang is very clear.
If this is the case, why did Xie Xiaoliang abandon the United States and return to China at this juncture?
Xie Xiaoliang's origin is very good. He was born in Beijing in June 1962. His father, Xie Youchang, and his mother, Yang Junying, were both professors in the chemistry department at Peking University. Therefore, throughout his primary and secondary school years, he has been studying at the affiliated schools of Peking University. On the one hand, he was carefully taught by his parents, on the other hand, he was also smart and studious, so he had very good grades and has always been the bully in the class.
However, when he was young, he encountered the abolition of the college entrance examination system by the state, and the combination of intellectuals going to the mountains and the countryside to combine with workers and peasants. Therefore, if there is no college entrance examination, even if it is a bully, the hero has no place to play.
But he was born into a family of high-ranking intellectuals, and the family had a large collection of books. He's been reading those books, he's been teaching himself. Therefore, before the college entrance examination, he was actually fully prepared.
In 1977, the college entrance examination was resumed. Xie Xiaoliang was 18 years old in 1980. That year, he took the college entrance examination and was very successfully admitted to the Department of Chemistry of Peking University.
Peking University is naturally the top university in the country, and the university's courses are naturally very rich. However, for a smart child like Xie Xiaoliang, it is obvious that a chemistry department cannot feed him and satisfy his appetite for knowledge. So during his college years, he also audited the courses of the physics department and the mathematics department, and used the summer vacation time to go to the laboratory to do experiments. These prepared him for a reserve of knowledge and for higher-level scientific research.
In the summer of 1985, Xie Xiaoliang went to the University of California, San Diego to pursue a doctorate. After graduating with a Ph.D. in 1989, he went to the university of Chicago as a postdoc in the lab of Graham Fleming, a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Chicago.
After Xie Xiaoliang finished his studies, he did not return to China, but stayed in the United States to work and became a U.S. citizen. For those overseas students who go to study abroad and become American nationals, the Chinese people have always been unkind. People who feel that these people occupy China's good resources, are cultivated by China, but have not returned to China to serve, and have also joined foreign nationality and contributed to foreign countries.
However, the reason why Xie Xiaoliang did not return to China is actually very simple. Because at that time, foreign science and technology were very developed, especially laboratories, which were high-end and very perfect. China's reform and opening up has only recently begun, and the domestic laboratories and test conditions have not reached the level of such an advanced country as the United States.
If Xie Xiaoliang had returned to the country at that time, he would not have been able to do research in such an advanced laboratory as the United States. Without advanced laboratories to do research, he could not have achieved more.
In addition, the academic centers in the world at that time were still in Western countries such as the United States. In these countries, not only do they have the conditions for experimentation, but they can also meet more other top scientists in the world, and communicate with them, with a broader future and greater achievements.
Therefore, our choice of them should be understandable.
Xie Xiaoliang is abroad, and with his intelligence and hard-working, he has achieved great achievements and won many of the highest awards in related fields in the United States. In 1999, he was hired as a tenured professor at Harvard University. This is the first tenured professor from Chinese mainland hired by Harvard University after the reform and opening up. Moreover, Xie Xiaoliang's research has also received active support from Harvard University. In 2000, he submitted six research applications, all of which were accepted by Harvard university and strongly supported. It can be seen that the school attaches great importance to him. In 2009, he received the Alborne Prize in Biomedical Sciences, the American Prize in Life Medicine. There is not a single person in history who has not won the Nobel Prize. That's why everyone says that Xie Xiaoliang is the closest Chinese to the Nobel Prize.
However, although Xie Xiaoliang has always been abroad, as a Chinese, it has always been a dream of Xie Xiaoliang to return to his motherland and make greater contributions to the country. Although the national research environment is not as good as that of foreign countries, it may not be easy to win the Nobel Prize in China, Xie Xiaoliang still returned to China, and in July 2018, Xie Xiaoliang returned to Peking University as the director of the Department of Science of Peking University.
Of course, the reason why Xie Xiaoliang came back at this time, in addition to his desire to serve the country, is also because our country is gradually becoming stronger, Xie Xiaoliang himself has said, he said, in the past 10 years, China's scientific and technological environment has undergone tremendous changes, the state's investment in basic research and interdisciplinary fields has been increasingly strengthened, and vigorously introduced talents, creating various favorable conditions for talents returning to China. Many of Xie Xiaoliang's peers have also returned to China under such circumstances, such as the Beijing Institute of Sciences, led by Wang Xiaodong, a foreign academician and biologist of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has attracted a large number of scientists to return to China through the establishment of new systems and models. And in a very short period of time, they have published a large number of high-level papers in the world's top scientific journals.
All of this makes Xie Xiaoliang full of confidence in China's scientific research environment. After returning to China, with the strengthening of the motherland, the increasing emphasis on scientific and technological work, and the improvement of China's status in the world, I believe that Professor Xie Xiaoliang will certainly be able to lead his team and achieve greater achievements.