Plenary Lectures

Haw Yang is an experimental physical chemist who began his scientific journey with gas-phase high-resolution molecular beam spectroscopy, but switched to earn his doctoral degree in liquid-phase ultrafast dynamics. Under the late Professor Charles B. Harris, his Ph.D. work at UC Berkeley was one of the first ultrafast pump-probe studies to unravel photocatalysis reaction mechanisms. He switched field again to single-molecule biophysics during his post-doctoral time at Harvard University, and moved into investigating chemical dynamics in increasingly complex environments in his independent career that started back in UC Berkeley and now at Princeton University. His contributions to date appear to involve a mixture of solving scientific problems and inventing new techniques while developing practical theories.

Dr. Chen-Wei Liu graduated with a B.S. in chemistry from Fu Jen Catholic University in 1986 and came to Texas A&M where he received his PhD in 1994 with Distinguished Professor John P. Fackler, Jr. After an additional year of postdoctoral work at A&M he took a postdoctoral position at Academia Sinica in Taipei. In February, 1997 he accepted an Associate Professor position at Chung Yuan Christian University and was promoted to Professor in 2002. In 2005 he took a professorial position at National Dong Hwa University where he was promoted to Distinguished Professor in 2010 and has served a term (2014 ~ 2017) as the Chemistry chair. He has received several accolades which include: Distinguished Young Investigator Award of the Chinese Chemical Society, 2002; France-Taiwan Scientific Prize, 2016; Outstanding Research Award, Ministry of Science and Technology, 2017; the 15th Y. Z. Hsu Science Paper Award; Ho Chin-Tui Distinguished Honor Award, 2019; and Outstanding Research Award, National Science and Technology Council, 2023. He has supervised 7 Ph. D. and 55 master students to date.

Chao-Ping (Cherri) Hsu was born in Taiwan. She obtained her B. S. and M.Sc. degrees in Chemistry in 1990 and 1992, both from National Taiwan University. She received her Ph.D. degree in Chemistry in 1998, from California Institute of Technology, under the supervision with Prof. Rudy Marcus. She was a Miller Fellow in University of California, Berkeley, with Prof. Graham Fleming, Prof. Martin Head-Gordon and Prof. Teresa Head-Gordon. In year 2002, he accepted a position of Assistant Research Fellow Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, where she was promoted to Associate Research Fellow and Research Fellow in 2007 and 2013, respectively. She is internationally recognized by her pioneering work on characterizing the electronic coupling in electron transfer and energy transfer with first-principle quantum chemistry computation. She has also work on developing mathematical modeling work for systems biology. She has received numerous of awards, including the Heritage Prize from the Li Foundation in 2002, Wu Ta-You Memorial Award from the National Science Council (current National Council of Science and Technology) in 2008, The Junior Researcher Award from Academia Sinica in 2009, the Pople Medal from Asia-Pacific Association of Theoretical & Computational Chemists in 2010, the Outstanding Young Scholar Award from Shui-Mu Foundation of Chemistry in 2011, and the Outstanding Research Award from the National Council of Science and Technology in 2011 and 2023. She is currently a member of the Editorial Advisory Board, The Journal of Chemical Physics, an Associate Editor for Theoretical Chemistry Accounts. She is also a Center Scientist of the physics division, National Center for Theoretical Sciences.

Susumu Kitagawa obtained a Ph.D. degree at Kyoto University and is now a Distinguished Professor at KUIAS and iCeMS. He serves as Kyoto University's Executive Vice-President for Research Promotion from 2024. Kitagawa pioneered the Chemistry of porous coordination polymers (PCPs) and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), predicting their flexible framework and developing gas storage, separation, and conversion applications. He coined "soft porous crystal" (SPC), catalyzing a field now integral to materials chemistry. Kitagawa envisions a future where porous materials drive advancements across environmental, energy, resource, and health sectors, labeling the 21st century the "age of gas." His contributions have garnered numerous accolades, including awards from the Chemical Society of Japan, The Medal with Purple Ribbon from the Japanese Government, The RSC de Gennes Prize, the ACS Fred Basolo Medal, the Japan Academy Award, and the Chemistry for the Future Solvay Prize. Kitagawa's impact extends through memberships in the Japan Academy, Foreign member of the Royal Society, and significant recognition as Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher (2014 - 2024).