Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientist Dong-Hai Li and Zhizhong Zhu were recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The academy, according to its website, serves as an honorary society and independent research center for leaders in various disciplines.
"It is a great honor to be elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," Zhou said in an email. Zhou is a visiting professor in the Department of Climate and Ecosystem Sciences, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Berkeley Lab, and a professor at the University of Oklahoma. "I am very grateful to my former advisors, collaborators, students, postdocs, and visitors for their great help, support, and encouragement over the past 40 years."
Zhou says he began his life in Hunan Province in south-central China, where he earned a bachelor's degree in plant pathology and entomology in 1981 and a master's degree in mathematical insect ecology from Hunan Agricultural University in 1984.
Later, Zhou received his doctorate in molecular genetics and cell biology from Washington State University in 1993. In 2006 he formally joined Berkeley Lab as a visiting professor.
Some of Zhou's notable achievements to date include the discovery of principles for understanding microbial systems in response to climate change, advances in theoretical microbial systems ecology, and the development of computational techniques related to network analysis and community assembly.
"I will continue some existing collaborative projects and develop new collaborative projects related to climate change, theoretical ecology and ecosystem modeling," Zhou said in an email.
Zhu expressed interest in working on joint projects to help young scientists develop professionally.
A senior faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Department of Physics and professor of physics at UC Berkeley, Lee began his career far from his current job.
"I was born in Taiwan to a family of two sons," Lee said via email. "My father was a columnist and my mother was a housewife. In 1977, I received a bachelor's degree in physics from Tsinghua University. I attended graduate school at MIT and received a doctorate in physics in 1982.
Lee's specialty is condensed matter theory.
He notes that he has made several advances in this field, including high-temperature superconductivity and phase transitions in the quantum Hall effect.
"It is a great honor to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," Lee said in an email. "I look forward to continuing to work in the fields of unconventional superconductivity and topological condensed matter physics."
