Peking University, April 12, 2019: Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T), one of the top American Chemical Society academic journals, recently released the list of ES&T’s Best Papers of 2018 in an ACS National Meeting in Florida, USA between March 31 and April 4. The group of Yao Maosheng, full professor with tenure of the College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, shared the honors.

Among nearly 100 nominated top-ranked papers,11 best papers were carefully chosen by ES&T’s selection committee in the categories of Environmental Science, Environmental Technology, Environmental Policy, and Features. The paper from Professor Yao’s group, “Global Survey of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Air”, was awarded second runner up for ES&T’s best Environmental Science article of 2018. ES&T is commonly regarded as a top journal in environmental science. An ES&T’s best paper must suffice to have worldwide influence in its field. Among ES&T’s best papers in Environmental Science, the research paper led by Professor Yao is the only one from the Chinese Mainland. It is also the first time Peking University has received this honor.

The lead author of this paper is Li Jing, who received a Ph.D. degree from PKU’s College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. She is now a post-doc in Linde + Robinson Laboratory at Caltech. Professor Yao is the only corresponding author. Instructed by Yao, Li Jing finished her undergraduate dissertation and published it in ES&T. During her pursuit for doctoral degree, she was awarded Excellent Doctoral Student Scholarship by Shanghai Tongji Gao Tingyao Environmental Science & Technology Development Foundation (STFEF). This paper was published as the cover article with ACS editor’s choice on October 2, 2018.