UW News

April 26, 2007

Medicine graduate students receive China National Award

Last week, three graduate students from the School of Medicine received the 2006 China National Award for Outstanding Overseas Students at a ceremony at the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco. Mr. Keyu Peng, Chinese Consul General in San Francisco, attended the ceremony along with Chinese student representatives from Stanford University, University of California (UC) at Berkeley and Davis.


Zhaoshi Jiang is pursuing a doctoral degree in the Department of Genome Sciences. His research is focused on the evolution of human segmental duplications under the supervision of Evan Eichler, associate professor of genome sciences. Qiangwei Xia is pursuing a doctorate in the Department of Microbiology and working on quantitative proteomics under the supervision of Murray Hackett, principal research scientist in chemical engineering. Lei Chen received his doctorate in microbiology on April 17.


The National Award for Outstanding Overseas Students has been awarded by the Chinese government since 2003.  In 2006, the applications for the award came from 27 countries. Applicants self-apply to their local Chinese embassy where education officers of the embassy, local experts, and academicians of the American Academy of Sciences review and select the best applicants.  Selected applications are posted on the Internet for public feedback, after which the local Chinese embassies make their recommendations and send them on to China. The China Scholarship Council invites a committee of experts from various research disciplines, including academicians of the Chinese Science Academy to evaluate the applications.

The committee selected 302 outstanding overseas students worldwide. Among the 75 winners in the United States, were three students each Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and the UW). This is the first time UW has had three awardees, and they are all from School of Medicine. Award winners are from a range of disciplines, including arts, science, engineering, medicine, and commerce. Each winner receives a $5,000 cash prize.