Alumni
In the past four decades, the School has trained thousands of outstanding graduates. Among our alumni, there are members of domestic and foreign academies of science and engineering. Many have grown into scientists and educators in universities and research centers around the world. Others have gone on to found companies or took leadership roles in industry, making remarkable achievements in the fields of information, finance and manufacturing.
From 2016 to 2020, 35% of the graduating classes chose to pursue graduate degrees abroad, 44% pursue graduate studies in domestic institutions, and the rest either took a gap year before pursuing graduate studies or took jobs in industry.
Yang Zhong '79
Prof. Zhong, who passed away in 2017, was a Changjiang Scholar Professor at Fudan University. He held a long-term commitment and made key contributions to biodiversity research and protection, and to the advancement of education in Western China.
“Person Who Has Moved China”(2018)
Yaqin Zhang '78
Professor of computer science, Tsinghua University
Academician, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
President of Baidu（2014 - 2019）
Senior Executive of Microsoft（1999 - 2014）
Liqun Luo ‘81
Professor of biology, Stanford University
Member, U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
National Academy of Sciences Pradel Award (2019)
Jiangfeng Du '85
President of Zhejiang University
Academician, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Professor of physics, USTC
Xiaowei Zhuang '87
Professor of physics and biology, Harvard University
Member, U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Academician, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2019)
MacArthur Genius Award (2003)
Jianjun Gu '87
Professor of robotic engineering, Dalhousie University, Canada
Member, Canadian National Academy of Engineering
President of IEEE Canada (2020-2021)
Sidao Ni '88
Professor of geophysics，USTC
Vice President, CAS Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology
Academician, Chinese Academy of Sciences
China Geophysical Science and Technology Award (2022)
Shanhui Fan '88
Professor of physics, Stanford University
Member, U.S. National Academy of Engineering
R. W. Wood Prize (2022)
Simons Investigators (2021)
Melissa Dongmin Ma '85
Founder of Baidu
Established “USTC Rose Development Fund” (2018)
Yuqian Xiong '85
Founder and President of Foxit Software
Biao Wan '87
Vice Chairman of Honor Device Corporation
Rick Ke Li '92
Partner, Goldman Sachs
Tian Xue '95
Professor of Biology, USTC
XPLORER Prize (2022)
Xi Yin '96
Professor of physics, Harvard University
Breakthrough Prize – New Horizons in Physics (2017)
Yunji Chen '97 and Tianshi Chen ’01 (brothers)
Yunji: Senior Scientist, CAS Center for Brain Research
MIT Science and Technology Review “35 Under 35” (2015)
XPLORER Prize (2019)
Tianshi: Founder and CEO of Cambricon
China Science News Person of the Year (2019)
Yu’ao Chen ‘98
Professor of physics, USTC
Executive Dean, School of Physics, USTC
Fresnel Prize, European Physical Society (2013)
China Science News Person of the Year (2013)
XPLORER Prize (2019)
Shan Lu '98
Professor of computer science, University of Chicago
Distinguished Member, Association for Computing Machinery (2019)
Song Sun '02
Professor of mathematics, UC Berkeley
Veblen Prize in Geometry (2019)
Breakthrough Prize - New Horizons in Mathematics (2021)
Gao Chen '08
Professor of mathematics, USTC
Alibaba Damo Academy Prize (2021)
In 2021, at the age of 26, published a major advance in differential geometry in the top mathematics journal Inventiones Mathematicae, connecting the theory of relativity and the Yang-Mills theory.
Yuan Cao '10
Professor of electrical engineering, UC Berkeley
McMillan Prize in solid state physics (2021)
Published 8 papers in Nature and 1 in Science
In 2018, at the age of 22, he was named one of the “Ten Scientists of 2018” by Nature magazine.