The recipients of the 2023 Young Scientists for a Better Society were recently announced, which included scholars from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech).

Yinqian ZHANG, Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, was conferred by the Award Committee, and Zhirui ZENG, Associate Professor of the Department of Ocean Science and Engineering, received a nomination.

Yinqian ZHANG joined SUSTech in 2021. He is now a Professor of the Department of Computer Science and the Director of the Information Security Research Center of the Research Institute of Trustworthy Autonomous Systems.

He is a leading expert in computer system security. He has received numerous awards for his academic contributions, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an ACM CCS Test-of-Time Award, a Rising Star Award from the Association of Chinese Scholars in Computing, and an OSU Lumley Research Award. He has been selected as one of the Top 2% Scientists Worldwide by Stanford University.

Recently, Prof. ZHANG has devoted himself to the research and application of confidential computing, and carried out research work in multiple areas such as computer architecture, system software, application software, and distributed systems. For his contribution to confidential computing, he was selected as one of the ten Privacy-Preserving Computation Tech Innovators by MIT Technology Review China.

Zhirui ZENG’s research approach specializes in marine microbiology, focusing on the biosynthesis mechanism of archaeal cell membrane lipids. He first discovered and named a series of key archaeal lipid synthase genes, which is an important breakthrough in basic research.

He has published many papers in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Nature Communications, and Geology as the first or corresponding author.

Prof. ZENG adopts the research methods of biology, chemistry, and earth science, and has achieved a series of outstanding results through in-depth interdisciplinary integration, promoting the application of membrane lipid markers in global climate change and solving the mystery of archaeal GDGT lipid biosynthesis.

He has participated in science popularization activities, and wrote chapters in popular science books to explain ocean knowledge, enhance the public’s understanding of the ocean, and strengthen the awareness of the power of the ocean.

A total of 742 young scientific and technological workers from all walks of life participated in the event, with 40 scholars nominated for the program, and ten scholars receiving the 2023 Young Scientists for a Better Society accolade.