Yuan Tseh Lee (Chinese:李遠哲;pinyin:Lǐ Yuǎnzhé;Wade–Giles:Li³ Yüan³-che²;Pe̍h-ōe-jī:Lí Oán-tiat; born 19 November 1936) is a Taiwanesechemist who was awarded theNobel Prize in Chemistry in 1986 for his contributions to the development ofreaction dynamics.
Lee is a professor emeritus at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, and honorary director of theNagoya University Institute for Advanced Study along withRyoji Noyori.[1][2][3][4] He was awarded the Nobel withJohn C. Polanyi andDudley R. Herschbach for "contributions to the dynamics of chemical elementary processes".[3][5] He was the first Taiwanese person be awarded the Nobel Prize. His research inphysical chemistry concerned the use of advancedchemical kinetics techniques to investigate and manipulate the behavior of chemical reactions usingcrossed molecular beams.[3][5] From 1994 to 2006, Lee served as the President of theAcademia Sinica.[4] In 2011, he was elected head of theInternational Council for Science.[4]
Lee was born to aHoklo Taiwanese family in Shinchiku City (modern-dayHsinchu city) in northern Taiwan, which was then underJapanese rule, toLee Tze-fan, an artist, and Ts'ai P'ei (蔡配;Cài Péi), an elementary school teacher from Goseikō Town (梧棲港街),Taichū Prefecture (Wuqi,Taichung).[1][3][4] Lee is a Hokkien with ancestry fromNan'an City, China.[6] Lee played on thebaseball andping-pong teams of Hsinchu Elementary School, and later studied at theHsinchu Senior High School, where he playedtennis,trombone, and theflute.
He was exempted from theentrance examination and directly admitted toNational Taiwan University. He earned aB.S. in 1959.[1][3] He earned hisM.S. fromNational Tsing Hua University in 1961 and hisPh.D. from theUniversity of California, Berkeley, in 1965 under the supervision ofBruce H. Mahan.[1][3] He was a member of the Chemistry International Board from 1977 to 1984.[4]
In February 1967, he started working withDudley Herschbach atHarvard University on reactions betweenhydrogen atoms and diatomicalkali molecules and the construction of a universal crossed molecular beams apparatus. After the postdoctoral year with Herschbach he joined theUniversity of Chicago faculty in 1968. In 1974, he returned to Berkeley as professor of chemistry and principal investigator at theLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, becoming a U.S. citizen the same year. Lee is a University Professor Emeritus of theUniversity of California system.[7]
One of the major goals ofchemistry is the study of material transformations wherechemical kinetics plays an important role. Scientists during the 19th century stated macroscopic chemical processes consist of many elementary chemical reactions that are themselves simply a series of encounters betweenatomic ormolecular species. In order to understand the time dependence ofchemical reactions,chemical kineticists have traditionally focused on sorting out all of the elementary chemical reactions involved in a macroscopic chemical process and determining their respective rates.
Swedish chemistSvante Arrhenius studied this phenomenon during the late 1880s, and stated the relations between reactive molecular encounters andrates of reactions (formulated in terms ofactivation energies).
Other scientists at the time also stated a chemical reaction is fundamentally amechanical event, involving the rearrangement of atoms and moleculesduring acollision. Although these initial theoretical studies were only qualitative, they heralded a new era in the field of chemical kinetics; allowing the prediction of the dynamical course of a chemical reaction.
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, with the development of many sophisticated experimental techniques, it became possible to study the dynamics of elementary chemical reactions in the laboratory. Such as the analysis of the threshold operating conditions of a chemicallaser or thespectra obtained using various linear or non-linear laser spectroscopic techniques.
Professor Lee's research focused on the possibility to control the energies of the reagents, and to understand the dependence of chemical reactivity on molecular orientation, among other studies related to the nature of reaction intermediates,decay dynamics, and identifying complexreaction mechanisms. To do so, Professor Lee used a breakthroughlaboratory technique at the time, called the"crossed molecular beams technique", where the information derived from the measurements of angular and velocity distributions allowed him and his team to understand the dynamics of elementary chemical reactions.[8]
In 2021, Lee donated his Nobel Prize medal to theNational Museum of Taiwan History for exhibition.[9]
During his tenure, Lee has worked to create new research institutes, advance scientific research within Taiwan, and to recruit and cultivate top scholars for theAcademia Sinica.
In 2010, Lee said that global warming would be much more serious than scientists previously thought, and that Taiwanese people needed to cut their per-capita carbon emissions from the current 12 tons per year to just three. This would take more than a few slogans, turning off the lights for one hour, or cutting meat consumption, noting: "We will have to learn to live the simple lives of our ancestors." Without such efforts, he said, "Taiwanese will be unable to survive long into the future".[10]
Lee was appointed the president ofAcademia Sinica in 1994 andrenounced his U.S. citizenship to take the post.[11] As president of Academia Sinica he presided over the creation of the Taiwanese history textbookKnowing Taiwan.[12]
At the request of presidentChen Shui-bian, Lee was Taiwan'srepresentative in the 2002APEC leaders' summit inMexico. (Presidents of the Republic of China have been barred from joining the APEC summits because of objections from the People's Republic of China.) Lee represented Chen again in the 2003 and 2004 APEC summits inThailand andChile, respectively.[13]
In July 2024, Lee accepted presidentLai Ching-te's invitation to serve as a consultant on the newly formed National Climate Change Strategy Committee.[14]
Lee was then elected President of theInternational Council for Science in 2008 and started his term in 2011.[15] He has been involved with the Malta Conferences, an initiative designed to bring together Middle Eastern scientists. As part of the initiative, he offered six fellowships to work on the synchrotron in Taiwan.[16] He is also a member of International Advisory Council inUniversiti Tunku Abdul Rahman.[17]
Lee's father was a painter in Taiwan, and his mother was an elementary school teacher. His elder brotherYuan-Chuan Lee has been a professor atJohns Hopkins University for 40 years and was awarded the honor Special Chair Lectureship in Academia Sinica in Taiwan. His younger brotherYuan-Pern Lee was also awarded this honor. Lee's sister Chi-Mei Lee has served as a professor atNational Chung Hsing University.[18]
In 2003, he was one of 22 Nobel Laureates who signed theHumanist Manifesto.[19]
During the2000 Taiwanese presidential election, Lee supported thepan-green coalition which advocatesTaiwan independence. In the last week of the election he announced his support for the candidacy ofChen Shui-bian who subsequently defeatedJames Soong in the election. Chen intended to nominate Lee to becomepremier.
In January 2004, he and industrial tycoonWang Yung-ching and theatre directorLin Hwai-min issued a joint statement to both Chen Shui-bian andLien Chan. He backed Chen again in the2004 elections, issuing a statement of support for the DPP on 17 March, three days before polls opened.
During the2012 presidential election, Lee expressed his support for DPP candidateTsai Ing-wen. In early 2016, he appeared and addressed a rally byNew Power Party, a party formed by student activists involved in theSunflower Movement.[20]
Yuan Lee has signed the 2015Mainau Declaration expressing concern aboutanthropogenic climate change.
Lee was one of the four Nobelists who established theWu Chien-Shiung Foundation.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, his awards and distinctions includeSloan Fellow (1969); Fellow ofAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (1975); Fellow Am. Phys. Soc. (1976);Guggenheim Fellow (1977); MemberNational Academy of Sciences (1979); Member International Academy of Science, Munich, MemberAcademia Sinica (1980); E.O. Lawrence Award (1981); Miller Professor, Berkeley (1981); Fairchild Distinguished Scholar (1983); Harrison Howe Award (1983); Peter Debye Award (1986);National Medal of Science (1986); Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement (1987) andFaraday Lectureship Prize (1992).[21] Yuan Tseh Lee was awarded theOthmer Gold Medal in 2008 in recognition of his outstanding contributions to progress in chemistry and science.[22][23][24] His post-doctoral supervisor and fellow Nobel LaureateDudley Herschbach congratulated Lee.[25] In 2019 Yuan T. Lee was also awarded the Fray International Sustainability Award by FLOGEN Star Outreach at SIPS 2019.[26]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link).International Council for Science. 7 November 2008
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