Two Academia Sinica Academicians and two Distinguished Research Fellows have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the association announced December 18. Academicians Yuen-Ron Shen and Jen Sheen, and Distinguished Research Fellows, Dr. Chung-Hsuan Chen and Dr. Su-May Yu have received the honor, which will be conferred at the AAAS Fellows Forum on February 20 during the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego.

This year 531 members of AAAS were elected by their peers as fellows in 24 different sections. Academician Yuen-Ron Shen and Dr. Chung-Hsuan Chen were elected in the Physics and Chemistry sections, respectively; and Academician Jen Sheen and Dr. Su-May Yu were both elected to the Biological Sciences section.

Academician Yuen-Ron Shen was elected for his “pioneering use of lasers to investigate nonlinear interactions of light and matter”. Dr. Shen is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He pioneered the development of novel linear and nonlinear optical techniques for exploration of new areas of research focusing recent effort on the development of surface nonlinear optical spectroscopies and their applications in surface science. Dr. Shen is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was the recipient of Alexander von Humboldt Award in 1984, the C.H. Townes Award in 1986, the A.L. Schawlow Prize in 1992, the Max Planck Research Prize in 1996, the F. Isakson Prize in 1998, the Department of Energy Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishments in Solid State Physics in 1983 and Sustained Outstanding Research in Solid State Physics in 1987.

Academician Jen Sheen was elected for her “seminal studies of signaling pathways in plants”. Dr. Sheen is a professor of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. She has been a Harvard faculty member since receiving her Ph.D. in cellular and development biology from Harvard in 1986. Dr. Sheen was elected an Academician of Academia Sinica in 2008. Dr. Sheen has made seminal contributions to several areas of plant molecular biology and plant signal transduction. She has unraveled molecular mechanisms that are evolutionarily conserved from plants to humans. The studies of these master regulators have illuminated research in mammalian and human systems, and provided new insights into genetic manipulation of plants for agricultural improvement and environmental protection. In the early stage of her career, she developed a high-throughput method to identify more than thirty genes critical for C4 photosynthesis in maize, a favorite plant for highly efficient photosynthesis and for production of food, biofuel and oil.

Director and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Genomics Research Center Chung-Hsuan Chen was elected for his “distinguished contributions to ultra-sensitive detection and biological mass spectrometry technology development”. Dr. Chen is a longtime devotee to the development and improvement of mass spectrometry technology. Among his accomplishments are the development of the Ultrasound Ionizaion Mass Spectrometer, which offers a simple method for biomolecule detection, and the development of the Charge-Monitoring Mass Spectrometer in collaboration with the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences in 2007. In 1976 Dr. Chen and his colleagues developed the first mass spectrometer able to conduct single atom detection. Dr. Chen extended his field to biomolecular research in 1997 with the development of the Laser-Induced Acoustic Desorption Mass Spectrometer that is able to detect cancer cells.

Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Molecular Biology Su-May Yu was elected for her “distinguished contributions to functional genomics and molecular biology research in rice and for her highly successful developments in plant biotechnologies.” Among her accomplishments, Dr. Yu headed a team that completed the Taiwan Rice Insertional Mutagenesis (TRIM) library, a large size rice mutant library employed for the functional analysis of rice genes. The library is among the best of only four available worldwide, and is very useful for discovery of genes essential for disease and insect resistance, stress (e.g., drought, flooding, high salt, abnormal temperatures) tolerance, efficient fertilizer use, and yield increase, which can be applied to improve rice and also other cereal crops which are needed to ensure food and bioenergy security for the rapidly growing world population.

The AAAS was founded in 1848. It is the world’s largest general scientific society and includes about 262 affiliated societies and academies of science. The mission of the non-profit association is to advance science and serve society through initiatives in territories including science policy, international programs and science education. The AAAS is the publisher of Science, Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling.

Related Websites: http://www.aaas.org/  ,  http://www.sciencemag.org