This year’s Presidential Science Prize winners were announced yesterday. One of the three winners has a close relationship with a Presidential Office official, while another has close ties to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration.
The three winners this year are Chien Shu (錢煦), a member of Academia Sinica and director of the Institute of Engineering in Medicine; Liao I Chiu (廖一久), a member of Academia Sinica and aquaculture professor at National Taiwan University; and Paul Lee (李壬癸), a member of Academia Sinica’s Institute of Linguistics.
Chien is an elder brother of former minister of foreign affairs Fredrick Chien (錢復), while Liao is the elder brother of Presidential Office Secretary-General Liao Liou-yi (廖了以).
PHOTO: CNA
Liao Liou-yi, who introduced the winners to the media yesterday, said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would present the awards to them at the Presidential Office on Friday.
The biennial award was created by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 2001. Each winner will receive a trophy and a cash prize of NT$2 million (US$62,000).
Chien Shu said he never thought he would win an award when he began his research 30 years ago and that he felt “embarrassed by this undeserved praise.”
He joined Academia Sinica in 1976 and began conducting research at the Department of Bioengineering and Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, in 1988.
Liao I Chiu began his research in aquaculture when he returned to Taiwan in July 1968 after obtaining a doctorate in agriculture in Japan.
His long career at the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute has helped Taiwan gain a reputation as “the kingdom of breeding,” while Liao has been dubbed “the father of black tiger prawn breeding.”
He was selected as a member of the Academia Sinica in 1992 and has published many papers in national and international publications.
Liao I Chiu thanked his co-workers and family for their assistance and support.
While he once stayed up for seven days and nights observing the activities of shrimps, his wife said this luckily did not happen after they got married.
Lee was the first Taiwanese researcher to profile the migration of Austronesian peoples and make written records of 15 of the Austronesian languages.
He began his research while pursuing his doctoral degree in linguistics at the University of Hawaii from 1967 to 1970.
He has been studying Taiwan’s Austronesian languages and dialects since he joined Academia Sinica in 1970.
Describing his long research career as “forlorn,” Lee said what kept him going was his interest and strong sense of calling.
“If I don’t do it, who will?” he said. “Besides, it is a meaningful job.”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Huang’s body was found just outside the bathroom and showed no signs of a struggle, and no alcohol or drugs were found Singer and actor Alien Huang (黃鴻升) was found dead at his home in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) yesterday. He was 36. Huang was also known by the nickname Xiao Gui (“little ghost”). His body was found when his father went to check on him after being unable to reach him by telephone, and called emergency services to the house at 11am, the Taipei City Police Department said. Huang’s body, which was discovered just outside the bathroom, showed no signs of a physical struggle, and he appeared to have been dead for some time, police said, adding that no drugs or alcohol were
CONFIRMED IN PHILIPPINES: The CECC would conduct contact tracing for the migrant workers to determine if they had come into contact with elderly people or children Six Filipinos tested positive for COVID-19 upon returning home from Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday as it reported a case of imported COVID-19 infection, bringing the number of confirmed cases in Taiwan to 500. Philippine authorities reported four of the cases through the National IHR Focal Point, while the other two were reported by the company that they had worked for in Taiwan. The six — five women and one man — are aged from their 20s to 40s, and worked as in-home care workers, domestic workers, factory workers and sailors in Taiwan, said Minister of Health and
TIME FOR CHANGE: Most of those at a public hearing organized by the DPP’s Chung Chia-pin also agreed that the Control Yuan and Examination Yuan should be abolished Taiwan needs a new constitution, as the current one was adopted in Nanjing in 1946, when the Republic of China (ROC) represented all of China, while the Control Yuan and Examination Yuan should be abolished, legal experts and academics said yesterday during a public hearing at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. Chang Kun-sheng (張錕盛), a law professor and secretary-general of the Taiwan Administrative Law Association, said that it is time to draft a new constitution. The ROC Constitution was adopted during a National Constituent Assembly meeting in Nanjing shortly after World War II and before the Chinese Civil War had fully erupted,
The COVID-19 pandemic might not have originated from a seafood market in Wuhan, China, National Taiwan University College of Public Health professor Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. While many countries are experiencing second waves of COVID-19 infections, many are also lifting lockdowns to revive their economies, allowing travelers to cross national borders, Chen said. Academics have been questioning whether genetic mutations in the novel coronavirus in different countries have made it more infectious, he added. Academics from different backgrounds have conducted phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences, he said, adding that the studies can help scientists understand how the virus spread among
RSS