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 American scientist Britton Chance received honorary degree certificate from Academician LI Peigen, president of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) on April 19, 2009, at the auditorium of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO). Dr. Chance, 96 years old, is an amazing scientist, fellow and foreign fellow of Academy of Science of six countries. He has already held 12 honorary degrees from 10 countries.
Leaders from Hubei Provincial Foreign Expert Bureau, Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Wuhan Municipality, Wuhan Foreign Expert Bureau, HUST Academic Degree Office, HUST International Exchange Center, HUST College of Life Science and Technology and WNLO all attended the ceremony.
Qingming Luo, vice president of HUST, being also Chance’s student, introduced Dr. Chance during the ceremony. “Dr. Chance is amazing. He is a world renowned scientist and an Olympic champion of 5.5-meter sailing in the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games. He has many hobbies, including his favorite sailing from childhood. He achieved significant successes in the fields of mechanical automation, chemistry, biology, optoelectronics, information, and medicine, and is recognized as ‘father of biophysics’ and ‘father of biomedical photonics’.”
Dr. Chance has China’s complex. He supported Qingming Luo to return to China and build up the Chance’s lab of Biomedical Photonics at HUST in 1997, which is China's first institute in this field. After a dozen years of construction, this lab has grown up to a center (BC CBMP) with significant impact in this field upon the world. To reward his contributions, the Hubei provincial government awarded Dr. Chance the “Chime Bell Award”, and the Chinese government awarded him the “Friendship Award”, which is the top award to foreign experts in China. He met with Premier Wen Jiaobao in the People’s Great Hall in 2008. Dr. Chance was appointed chair professor by HUST in 1999.
As Dr. Chance said in his short speech, he was very glad to be here in Wuhan, invited by BC CBMP, the outstanding center set up by his students. BC CBMP is a place to do “New Science”, and has attracted not only him but a distinguished Board of Advisors. He saw a most bright future for Biomedical Optics in Chinese medicine, and encouraged the students to “be diligent and intelligent and enjoy the unique intellectual challenge of HUST”. After the ceremony, Dr. Chance gave a speech on “My life as a PhD student”.
Zilin Deng, a PhD candidate of BC CBMP, told the reporter, “Dr. Chance is still working hard and even does the experiment by himself at the age of 96, which is very admirable.”
Editor's note: Dr. Britton Chance is a Distinguished Professor of the Institute of Innovation and Advanced Studies (IIAS) at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU). Earlier during this March and April, he stayed at NCKU and has successfully developed the NIR Non-invasive Breast Cancer Early Detection and Warning Device prototype with his research team.
(http://proj.ncku.edu.tw/research/news/e/20090410/1.html)
From Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics
(http://bmp.hust.edu.cn/en/news/show.php?uid=78 )
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