On December 20, the list of winners for the 2024 Alibaba DAMO Academy Green Orange Award and its sub-award, the “Most Promising Award,” was officially announced, with 45 young Chinese scholars recognized.

Among them, four young scholars from Shanghai Jiao Tong University were selected.ZIAS faculty members, Associate Professor Yuan Yakun from the Future Materials Creation Center, and Associate Professor Shen Tao from the Center for Frontier Science of Transformative Molecules, both received the 2024 DAMO Academy Green Orange Award “Most Promising Award.”

学者简介

Yuan Yakun is a tenured-track associate professor and doctoral advisor at the Future Materials Creation Center, ZIAS.He received his Ph.D. in 2018 from Pennsylvania State University and later conducted postdoctoral research at UCLA and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.He joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2021.His research focuses on combining computational imaging with advanced electromagnetic probes, developing high-resolution four-dimensional spatiotemporal microscopy using electron, X-ray, and laser probes, and applying it to solve key problems in materials science.He has published over 40 papers in high-impact journals such as Nature, Nature Materials, and Nature Communications.His work has been featured by the U.S. National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, and international experts have praised him for “realizing a century-old dream in the field of glass materials.”He was previously named to the MIT Technology Review “35 Innovators Under 35 China” list.

Shen Tao is a tenured-track associate professor and doctoral advisor at the Center for Frontier Science of Transformative Molecules, as well as a resident scientist and team leader at ZIAS.He obtained his Ph.D. from Peking University in 2017 under Professor Ning Jiao and completed postdoctoral research at Cornell University in the group of Professor Tristan Lambert from 2018 to 2022.He joined SJTU in October 2022 and has since been selected for multiple national and municipal high-level talent programs, including the university’s “2030 Plan” and central funding for outstanding young faculty teams.His research centers on the selective activation and reorganization of inert bonds, high-value utilization of petrochemical molecules, and green synthetic chemistry.To date, he has published over 30 papers as first or corresponding author in leading journals such as Nature, Science, J. Am. Chem. Soc., and Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.He has received numerous honors, including the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award, the Shanghai Top 35 Young Science Leaders Award, the Xiaomi Young Scholar Award, the Emerging Science Talent Award (China), the Ministry of Education First Prize in Natural Sciences, and the NHU-CJC Innovation Award.

About the DAMO Academy Green Orange Award – “Most Promising Award”

Established by Alibaba DAMO Academy in 2018, the Green Orange Award aims to recognize young scientists (under age 35 or within six years of earning a Ph.D.) in the Greater China region who have made early-stage achievements in fields such as information technology, semiconductors, and intelligent manufacturing.The “Most Promising Award” is a sub-category that honors individuals with strong potential to drive key scientific breakthroughs.Each recipient receives 100,000 RMB in discretionary funding to support their continued research toward scientific excellence.