Georgia Institute of Technology materials science professor Zhong Lin Wang has been elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the first member to be selected from any Georgia college.

Dr. Wang, director of Tech’s Center for Nanostructure Characterization, is one of six foreign academics selected for the academy this year, according to a Georgia Tech news release.  Thirty-five academics from China were chosen.

The academy is a comprehensive research and development center in natural science, technological science and high-tech innovation in China.

“He is one of the best overseas Chinese professors in the field of materials science and physics worldwide,” Ze Zhang, an executive member of the academy who promoted Dr. Wang’s membership, said in a news release. “His discoveries and inventions involving nano-electricity generators have been well recognized by the international science community and the general public as one of the most influential technologies of the next decade.”

At Tech, Dr. Wang leads research that uses electron microscopes and other highly sophisticated equipment to study the structure of  materials, which could lead to breakthroughs in many fields, including energy production, environmental science and personal electronics.

Dr. Wang was born in China and earned a doctorate in physics in 1987 from Arizona State University. He has been at Tech for the last 15 years. Calling the lifetime academy appointment the most prestigious honor he has ever received, Dr. Wang told GlobalAtlanta that it will also raise Georgia Tech's profile in China.

 “It will have a broad impact on our joint programs," said Dr. Wang. "If we want to establish a joint program in China, we can directly ask  [the academy] for support."

An induction ceremony will be held in June in Beijing.

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