Sun Song, a Chinese math genius, returned home after more than 10 years working in the US, in a plan to build a world- class math center in the country.
Zhejiang University announced on January 2 that Sun Song, 36, will become a tenured professor at the university’s Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (IASM). Sun was previously a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, a top 15 university in the United States, according to the US News university rankings.
Sun Song’s appointment is part of Zhejiang University’s plan to turn its Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics into a world-class mathematics center. Li Jianshu, director of the IASM, said he wants to attract talented mathematicians from all over the world to achieve this goal. Zhejiang University is ranked third in China and 44th in the world by QS.
"If China wants to become a real science and technology powerhouse, it must nurture some leading science and mathematics centers. We still have a long way to go, but we will get there," said a statement from Zhejiang University.
"I will study hard, and at the same time guide students who want to pursue mathematics, and try my best to pass on professional knowledge to the younger generation," Sun said.
Sharing more, he said that Mathematics has no shortcuts, interest will be a prerequisite for those who want to explore this field.
"I think it takes a deep desire to understand mathematics. Research requires focus, and even more so, perseverance in following your own path and exploring problems you find interesting," Sun said.
Mathematician Sun Song. Photo: Zhejiang University, China
Sun Song is a famous Chinese mathematician. Born in Anhui Province, Sun was admitted to the talent program of the University of Science and Technology of China in 2002, at the age of 15. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, in 2010. Sun's main research interests are differential geometry and complex geometry.
In 2014, a year after joining Stony Brook University in New York, Sun was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship — one of the most competitive awards for emerging researchers.
Five years later, as a professor at UC Berkeley, he received the prestigious Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry from the American Mathematical Society. His work proved the long-standing conjecture about Fano manifolds, a branch of geometry.
Sun is also considered a strong candidate for the Fields Medal, the "Nobel Prize in Mathematics", awarded only to outstanding researchers under 40 years old.
Before Sun Song, IASM welcomed two Chinese mathematicians back from the US: geometry expert Ruan Yongbin, a professor at the University of Michigan (2021) and number theorist Liu Yifei from Harvard University (2022).
Doan Hung (According to The Paper, IASM, Zhejiang University )
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