BAI Chunli, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is elected to the Foreign Membership of the Royal Society, according to an announcement released by the Society on 30 April, 2014 in London.  

Professor BAI Chunli ForMemRS President, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor of Chemistry, CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Nanostructure and Nanotechnology, Institute of Chemistry, Beijing (Image by CAS)

Foreign Members of the Royal Society are elected for life through a peer review process on the basis of excellence in science. Each year up to 10 new Foreign Members are elected by existing Fellows. The Royal Society has currently about 140 Foreign Members. 

Dr. BAI, Professor of CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Nanostructure and Nanotechnology, is one of the pioneers in nanoscience. He designed and developed China’s first atomic force microscope (AFM), scanning tunneling microscope (STM), low-temperature STM, ultrahigh vacuum-STM, and ballistic electron emission microscope. This led to the country’s earliest technological tools for manipulating single atoms and molecules, and characterizing surfaces and interfaces.  

BAI established a methodology for the study of molecular assembly on solid substrate surfaces, such as the imaging of functional molecules on graphite surfaces. His use of alkane-assisted adsorption and assembly in this context is particularly noteworthy.  

Beyond his outstanding scientific achievements, Dr. BAI is also President of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS). He is the first Chinese who was elected to the position.   

Nine other scientists were elected to the Foreign Membership of the Royal society this year, including Steven Chu, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics in 1997, and Richard Axel, Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Linda B. Buck) in 2004.  

The Royal Society is the national Academy of science in the UK, and its core is its Fellowship and Foreign Membership. The Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering, and medicine.