Dr. Jiayang Li is currently the Director of Yazhouwang National Laboratory and Professor of Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He earned his PhD in biology from Brandeis University in the United States in 1991. After completing his postdoctoral research at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant research at Cornell University, he was recruited as a professor of plant molecular genetics by IGDB, CAS since 1995. His work is mainly focusing on the elucidation of molecular mechanisms underlying rice high-yield and superior-quality. He has also demonstrated that this fundamental knowledge can contribute to the development of improved rice varieties through molecular design technology he devoted and developed.

Dr. Li has published more than 240 scientific papers in international journals including Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Genetics, PNAS, etc, and has been recognized by Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Science as The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds and a Highly Cited Researcher in 2014 based on the published papers indexed within the Web of Science between 2002 and 2012, and a Highly Cited Researcher in each year during 2018-2023. His publications have been cited more than 40,000 times in Google Scholar with H-index of 98, and more than 32,000 times in Web of Sciences with H-index of 93.

Dr. Li’s achievements and global influence are well recognized worldwide. He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, Member of the German Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), and an EMBO Foreign Associate.

Dr. Li was also awarded numerous scientific prizes, including Seed Scientist Award (2022); TWAS-Lenovo Science Award (2020); Future Science Prize (2018); TAN KAN KEE Science Award (2018); China’s National Natural Science Award, First Prize (2017); Corresponding Membership Award, The American Society of Plant Biologists (2011); and the Medal Lecture Award, TWAS (2006).