On December 27, the 2023 DAMO Academy Young Science Awards and “Most Promising Award” winners were announced. A total of 45 young Chinese scholars were honored. Zhang Zhitao, tenure-track associate professor at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and the Synthetic Science Innovation Center at Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study, won the 2023 DAMO Academy Young Science Award. Liang Zheng and Lv Baiqing received the “Most Promising Award.”

2023 DAMO Academy Young Science Award

Zhang Zhitao, Tenure-track Associate Professor and PhD advisor, earned his PhD in 2017 from Fudan University, followed by a postdoctoral stint with Prof. Zhenan Bao at Stanford. Joined SJTU and ZIAS in July 2022. Focuses on high-performance, flexible, stretchable polymeric conjugated materials for applications in flexible electronics and bioelectronics. Published over 60 papers in journals such as Nature, Science, Nature Photonics, and Nature Reviews Materials, with over 6,800 citations and an h-index of 38. Recognized as one of MIT Technology Review’s “35 Innovators Under 35” China, RSC Emerging Investigator, and other honors.

Award citation: Pioneered fully organic stretchable light-emitting diodes, advancing applications of flexible, wearable bioelectronic materials in medical fields.

Project Summary: To address key issues in electronic skin development — stretchability, charge transport, and signal processing — Zhang proposed material and device-level solutions: (1) created continuous nanofiber networks to preserve material performance under strain; (2) filled internal traps to enhance charge transport (max brightness up to 7450 cd/m²); (3) integrated stretchable transistors to convert signals into brain-recognizable pulses, simulating human sensory systems. Featured by Science, Nature, and other journals.

2023 DAMO Academy “Most Promising Award”

Liang Zheng: Resident Scientist (Team Lead) at ZIAS, tenure-track associate professor at the Frontier Center of Transformative Molecular Science, PhD advisor. Earned PhD at Stanford University in 2018, postdoc at Stanford and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Joined SJTU in 2021. Focuses on battery materials under extreme conditions. Published 50+ papers in Nat. Sustain., Nat. Commun., PNAS, etc., with 14,000+ citations. Selected for talent programs including Global Highly Cited Researcher and RSC JMCA Emerging Scientist.

Lv Baiqing: Tenure-track associate professor at the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, School of Physics and Astronomy, and ZIAS. Focuses on photoelectron spectroscopy and novel quantum states. Published in Nature, Nat. Phys., PRX, PRL, etc. Discoveries of Weyl fermions and triply degenerate fermions recognized in China’s Top 10 Scientific Advances of 2015 and 2017 and selected as top physics breakthroughs by APS and Physics World.

About the Award

The DAMO Academy Young Science Award, founded in 2018 by Alibaba DAMO Academy and funded by Alibaba Philanthropy, honors Chinese scholars under 35 who drive scientific progress. Eligible fields include mathematics, physics, chemistry, materials, life sciences, medicine, astronomy, earth sciences, information engineering, and interdisciplinary sciences. Evaluation emphasizes innovation, academic and societal impact, and upholds fairness and rigor.

Each Young Science Award winner receives ¥1,000,000 unrestricted funding; “Most Promising Award” winners receive ¥100,000.