Yao Qizhi was born in Shanghai and grew up in Taiwan Province. I spent the first 20 years of my life immersed in the traditional culture of China. 1967, Yao Qizhi, 2 1 year old. After graduating from Taiwan Province Provincial University, he went to Harvard University to study physics, and received his doctorate in 1972. Yao Qizhi loves scientific research, and his strong interest attracts him to talk about it. He said, "I prefer novelty. If there is a new direction, I like to have a look and try." When doing postdoctoral research at the University of California, Yao Qizhi found that the emerging computer science has great power to dominate the future society, and he was keenly aware that this very important emerging discipline has huge development space. So the young man made an important decision in his life: to give up studying physics for eight years and engage in computer science research. Two years later, he successfully obtained a doctorate in computer science from the University of Illinois.
With keen scientific thinking, Yao Qizhi has been exploring new academic fields, and has been engaged in teaching and research in famous universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley. 1986 By 2004, he was a professor of computer science at Princeton University and became a top scientist in computing theory. Yao Qizhi is a scientist who regards hard work as a great pleasure. He believes that scientific research has a unique aesthetic feeling, and the creative view generated is "Happy? Instant "(the happiest moment) is the greatest happiness of researchers.
His nearly 100 academic papers have completely changed people's understanding of how information should be stored effectively. As a top scholar in the field of global computer theory, Yao Qizhi has won numerous awards in many scientific research fields, such as pseudo-random number generation, cryptography, communication complexity and so on. He is a member of National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Humanities, China Academy of Sciences and Taiwan Academia Sinica. He won the George Polya Prize of American Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the first Knut Prize named after Knut, the master of algorithm design. The American Computer Association (ACM) also awarded him the Turing Award in 2000.
Life is like a round dance. Return to the homeland where love is thousands of miles away forever. After many years abroad, Yao Qizhi still cares about the motherland. He believes that China has taken one third of the Turing road, and "hopes to do something for China and our compatriots". In 2004, 57-year-old Yao Qizhi decided to return to Chinese mainland, creating a new stage for scientific research. He resolutely resigned from the tenure of Princeton University, sold his house in the United States, and officially joined the Center for Advanced Studies of Tsinghua University as a full-time professor. "What I have learned can take root in China, where I was born, and I have the conditions to train world-class researchers for China in this field. I think this is a very meaningful thing. "
Only 1.5 years after arriving in Tsinghua University, Yao Qizhi started the "Software Science Experimental Class" aimed at cultivating international leading talents in computer science. What he values most is that there are many good potential students in Tsinghua. "One purpose of my return to China is to create a domestic first-class research environment in a short time, at least in my research field." Yao Qizhi said firmly, "We should build a' highway' in the computer field, so that our students can have better opportunities and greater sense of honor in working in China than anywhere else in the world, from undergraduates to graduate students and professors."
In just a few years, Yao Qizhi led his Tsinghua team to make great achievements in theoretical computer science research. In addition to filling the blank of China's papers published in the international frontier journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, three papers from the Department of Computer Science of Tsinghua University were selected at the top academic conference in the field of theoretical computer science in 2006, which achieved a "zero breakthrough" for domestic scholars at the conference, and one of them won the best paper award in FOCS in 2006.
On March 29th, 2007, Yao Qizhi led the establishment of the Theoretical Computer Science Research Center of Tsinghua University. Starting from Tsinghua, he gradually established a research team of computer theory science in China, trying to exert an influence in the world. Yao Qizhi said with deep affection, "In China, the development of this subject I specialize in is still relatively slow. And we have so many talents that it is the happiest thing to teach them this knowledge and guide them in this direction. " Major achievements: Turing Award in 2000.