Nobel Prize Chinese Americans Winners 

By Wubing Zong

	Alfred Bernhard Nobel, born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 21, 1833, was an industrialist, inventor of dynamite and the founder of the prize named after him.  He died in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896.   Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually to great achievers in physics, chemistry, literature, medicine and peace since 1901, and in economic science since 1969.   There were no Nobel Prize winners of Chinese ancestry before 1957 when Drs. C. N. Yang and T. D. Lee, representing China, received their Nobel Prizes in physics.  Since then, there have been three more Chinese American winners in physics and chemistry.   Also, Dr. Chien-shiung Wu, who provided experimental verification to Yang and Lee's theory of parity non-conservation, is described here.  This article is dedicated to these famous Chinese Americans for demonstrating what can be accomplished, given a chance to do so.

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Tsung Dao Lee

Date of Birth:	November 24, 1926
Place of Birth:	Shanghai, China
Came to U.S.:	1946
Received Ph.D.:	1950 at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Nobel Prize:	1957 in Physics

	In 1957, Tsung Dao Lee shared with Chen Ning Yang the Nobel Prize in Physics for their theory on the non-conservation of parity in elemental particles.  At age of 33 and 35, Lee and Yang became first Chinese ever to win a Nobel Prize. Dr. Lee owes his success to Professor Ta-You Wu, and said: "Without professor Wu, I couldn’t have the opportunity and achievement." 

Honors:  Albert Einstein Commemorative Award at Yeshiva University, New York, 1957;  Science Award of the Newspaper Guild of New York; Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and the academy Sinica;  Doctor of Science degree at Princeton University in 1958;  Enrico Fermi professor of Physics at Columbia University in 1964.    

	Tsung Dao Lee was the third of six children of Tsing Kong Lee and Ming
Chang Chang.  He completed his Bachelor of Science degree at National Zhejiang University which at that time was relocated to Guizhou Province. He attended the National Southwest Associated University in Kunming, Yunnan (1945 -1946), and met Chen Ning Yang for the first time.  He studied under Professor Ta-You Wu who secured him a government scholarship to study in the United States in 1946. In the U.S., he studied under Professor Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago, and became a close friend of Chen Ning Yang.   He completed his Ph. D. degree in 1950.  

	Dr. Lee was a research associate and lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley (1950 -1951), and then accepted a fellowship at the Institute of Advance Study at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.  He was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Physics in 1953 at Columbia University in New York City, and was promoted to a full professor in 1956.  At the age of 29, he was then the youngest professor on the faculty.  Except for years of 1960-1963 at the Institute for the Advanced Study, Dr. Lee continued his long time association with Columbia University.

	In 1980, Dr. Lee established the China-United States Physics Examination and Application (CUSPEA) program to allow qualified Chinese physics students to study for the Doctorate degree at American Universities. He devoted much of his energy after 1980 to this program, recalling that how a Chinese government scholarship to study in the U.S. in 1946 changed his life.  He organized the program to enable young Chinese scientists achieve success.  As a result, many talented Chinese students completed their Ph.D. and made their marks in science.  Starting in 1972, Dr. Lee worked diligently to help scientific research in China.  China established for the first time, a postdoctoral program.  He played a crucial role in building the Beijing electron-positron colliding laboratory.  Subsequently, the Beijing Laboratory has made several major discoveries, and has becoming a leading laboratory in the field of particle physics.

	Dr. Lee believes strongly that Chinese should and could make a greater contribution to the world.  Many Chinese Americans have achieved great success in the Universities, research centers, and scientific laboratories.  Hw said: If we unite, we will have a new force in the world of high technology and China will take the lead in the 21st century.