Professor Yau, Shing Tung is the world renowned mathematician who is the only Chinese being awarded the Fields Medal ( the Fields Medal has played the role of the Nobel Prize in Mathematics). The Fields Medal (1982) is a formal recognition for his contributions in the partial differential equations, the Calabi conjecture in algebraic geometry, the positive mass conjecture of general relativity theory, and the real and complex Monge-Ampere equations.

Prof. Yau was born in Shantou in 1949, and then immigrated to Hong Kong. After graduating from Pui Ching Middle School in 1966, he completed his Bachelor's degree in Mathematics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He studied for his doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley and received his Ph.D. in 1971. Between 1971 and 1987 he held appointments at a number of institutions, including Stanford (Calif.) University (1974-79), the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J. (1979-84), and the University of California, San Diego (1984-87). He is now a Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University and has joint appointments as Professor of Mathematics of the Chinese University and the Director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS) in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Prof. Yau solved the Calabi conjecture in 1976. Another conjecture solved by Prof. Yau was the positive mass conjecture, which comes from Riemannian geometry. His work here has applications to the formation of black holes. In the early 1980s Prof. Yau and William H. Meeks solved an open question remaining from Jesse Douglas' work on the Plateau problem in the 1930s.

He was awarded the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw in early August 1982 for his work in global differential geometry and elliptic partial differential equations.

Louis Nirenberg, the winner of the Bocher Memorial Prize of the American Mathematical Society, described Prof. Yau's work at the International Congress in Warsaw in 1983 as:

Original hand script of Prof.Yau

"S-T Yau has done extremely deep and powerful work in differential geometry and partial differential equations. He is an analyst's geometer with enormous technical power and insight. He has cracked problems on which progress has been stopped for years."

In 1981 Prof. Yau was awarded The Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry and The Carty Prize of the National Academy. In 1985, He was also awarded the MacArthur Fellow. The Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the United States National Medal of Science were granted to him in 1994 and 1997 respectively.

In recent years, Prof. Yau has concentrated on training young mathematicians in China. He founded the Institute of Mathematics at Peking University with the aim of encouraging more talented people to contribute in the research of Mathematics in China.

Prof. Yau also has very close relationship with his mother school -- The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received the honorary degree from her in 1981. He is now serving there as Professor for Department of Mathematics and the Director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS), actively promoting mathematics and science in Hong Kong.

Prof. Yau Shing Tung is a Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University.

Prof. Yau was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982.

One of the publications of Prof. Yau: Elliptic Curves, Modular Forms, & Fermat's Last Theory : Proceedings of a Conference Held in the Institute of Mathematics of The Chinese University of Hong Kong