Chien Shu (錢煦), an academic at Taiwan’s leading research institute Academica Sinica, received the US National Medal of Science from US President Barack Obama at an awards ceremony held at the White House on Friday.
The medal is the highest honor bestowed by the US government on scientists, engineers and inventors. Chien was the only ethnic Chinese recipient out of 12 awardees.
He was given the prestigious award for his pioneering work in cardiovascular physiology and bioengineering.
Such research has impacted the study of rheology, microcirculation and mechanotransduction (mechanisms in which cells convert mechanical stimuli into chemical activity).
A bioengineering professor based in the US, Chien is a world leading researcher on the impact of blood flow and pressure on blood vessels.
Upon receiving the award, Chien thanked Academica Sinica and other research partners for their long-term support and said the secret to his success was giving his all in research and excelling at what he loved.
He has been able to dedicate so many years to research because for him scientific research is like a hobby, and science a form of entertainment, Chien later told the press.
However, it was still important for scientists to maintain a balance between research and society and to make time for family, he added.
Chien plans to continue his research on the impact of blood flow and pressure on the cell lining of blood vessels and the mechanisms that regulate blood flow in blood vessels under healthy and diseased conditions to help improve the people’s health and quality of life.
The National Medal of Science awardees are selected from over 1,000 science researchers by the US National Science Foundation and is administered by the White House.
At the awards ceremony, Obama said that although the National Medal of Science awardees would not be appearing on the covers of People magazine, their contributions to improving people’s lives exceed imagination.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS