Peking University, Sept. 14, 2012: Under the invitation of Peking University (PKU), Zhuang Xiaowei, a famous young biophysicist, member of National Academy of Sciences in U.S. and Professor at Harvard University, paid a visit to PKU as an honored guest of PKU Global Fellowship recently.

Prof. Zhuang Xiaowei

“Research is my only concern and I want to do my research,” hair bobbed and decent dressed, Zhuang said to the audience with curiosity. A couple of months ago, she was elected as member of National Academy of Sciences when she was just forty.

When she was very young, she accidentally answered a very professional physics question brought up by her father, a university professor. From then on, Zhuang has been regarded as a girl with physical talent by him. “I never thought to be an entrepreneur, a politician, a prime minister or an aerospace pilot, which are all amazing careers, and what I wanted to be is always a scientist,” she felt lucky that she established her ideal from very beginning.

Graduating from the preparation class for Gifted Young College of University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Suzhou High School, she was then admitted to USTC. During this time, she set the record of all full marks in the four major courses of mechanics, which cannot be surpassed until now. In 1991, she got her bachelor degree and then went to the University of California, Berkeley. She pursued her study under Y. Ron Shen, a very famous physicist, and graduated with a Ph.D. in Physics in 1997.

Speaking of physics, Zhuang was very excited, “I really think that physics is very beautiful and precise. Everything has its logic, and physics is something that you acquire all as long as you understand.”

The year of 1997 was a huge transition for her. She chose to continue her postdoctoral research under Steven Chu at Stanford after thorough consideration. Zhuang turned to the field of biology in Chu’s lab. “I even couldn’t tell DNA from RNA”, admitted she. But she still experienced the incomparable happiness there and made great achievements in imaging technology.

In her eyes, Professor Shen had trained her with scientific attitude of suspicion, while Professor Chu had taught her how to address the valuable issue and choose the worthy subject.

Furthermore, Zhuang introduced the frontier research in her lab at Harvard University, which triggered questions and heated discussion among the students.

For her, concentration, horizon, fearlessness, persistence and luck are the key elements to do research, which helped her succeed.

Written by: Zhang Jiang

Source: PKU News (Chinese)