The National Academy of Sciences of the United States announced on April 30 the election of 120 members and 24 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Prof. WANG Yifang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the only scientist from the Chinese mainland to be elected an international member this year.

Prof. WANG, successfully led the design and construction of the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, which precisely measured the neutrino mixing angle theta13. He is now leading the JUNO (Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory) experiment to measure the neutrino mass hierarchy using reactor neutrinos and developed a new type of 20-inch micro-channel-based photomultiplier for this purpose.

WANG also led the design and development of the Beijing Spectrometer (BESIII). In 2012, he proposed the concept of a circular electron–positron collider (CEPC) and led the program design and key technology research.

For his outstanding contribution to particle physics, he was named one of China’s “Top Ten National Science and Technology Workers” and was awarded the first-level prize in China’s National Natural Science Award, China's national top-rank award for natural science, Prof. WANG has also won the W.K.H. Panofsky Prize for experimental particle physics, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and the Future Science Prize, among others.

He is now a member of CAS, a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the World Academy of Sciences.

Prof. WANG Yifang in the Photodetector Lab (Image by IHEP)