PREVIOUS AWARDS

2001 Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Academician Kopin Liu

Academician Kopin Liu's Personal Profiles

Born on January 25, 1949, Dr. Liu grew up in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan. In retrospect, he regarded the 3-year studies in Hsinchu High School as the most important period for his mental and intellectual growth. Afterwards, he was sent without an entrance examination to the Chemistry Department of National Tsing Hua University where he graduated in 1971. After two-year military service, he left for the United States for advanced studies and obtained his Ph.D. degree from Ohio State University in 1977. Later on, he conducted post-doctoral researches under Prof. J. C. Polanyi of University of Toronto in Canada and Prof. W. R. Gentry at University of Minnesota in the United States, respectively. He had since devoted to scientific researches at Argonne National Laboratory for over ten years before he was invited by President Lee Yuan-tseh of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan to work at its Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences until now. In August 2001, he was promoted as the Institute’s director. Dr. Liu specializes in chemical dynamics. He was ever invited to be a Chaired Professor of the Lin Rong-shan Foundation (1993-96) and an awardee of the Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship (1996-2001 and 2001-2006). He was elected as a fellow of the American Physics Society in 1998, a member of Academia Sinica in 2004, and a fellow of TWAS in 2005.