Lei Aiwen, professor of the School of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences and Vice President of the Institution for Advanced Studies at Wuhan University, was recently selected as 2015 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), founded in 1841 in the United Kingdom, is now one of the most influential academic associations around the world. Each year the RSC committee selects scientists globally based on the recommendation of expertise and awards fellow status to those who have made outstanding achievements and boosted the development of chemistry.

Before the award of FRSC, Lei has already received many honors: awardee of The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Changjiang Distinguished Professor of the Ministry of Education, China  and Luojia Distinguished Professor of Wuhan University.

Up till now, Lei’s research team has published over 180 theses, more than 60 of which were published in well-known journals like Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., J. Am. Chem. Soc. and Nature Commun. Accumulatively these theses have been cited for over 5000 times by SCI, among which the highest cited time of a single thesis has reached 600. Moreover, Lei has been invited to write reviews on oxidative coupling polymerization for top chemistry review journals like Chem. Rev., Chem. Soc. Rev. and Acc. Chem. Res. since 2011.

In 2015, Lei became a member of the Chem. Rev’s advisory committee. He is also the Vice Chairman of the Catalysis Society of China, the member of the Physical Organic Chemistry Committee of  the Chinese Chemistry Society, the editor of the Chemistry–An Asian Journal, and the advisory editor of Chinese Chemical Letters.

Throughout his academic life, Lei has won the following prizes successively: Wuxi App Tech Biochemistry Research Award, Chinese Chemical Society - John Wiley Publishing Company’s Youth Chemistry thesis Award, the Fifth China-US Professors Association’s Distinguished Professor Award, Japanese Chemical Society "Outstanding Asian Young Scientists Conference" Lecture Award, Asia's Core Curriculum Lecture Award , Lily Company’s Asian Chemist’s Achievement Award, Hubei Natural Science Award , Chinese Chemical Society - the British Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Young Chemists, Chinese Chemical Society Physical Organic Chemistry Youth Award, Roche Pharmaceutics Young Chemist Prize, Singapore’s " Star of Asia ", Hubei May-fourth Youth Medal and so on.

(Rewritten by Tang Yedan, edited by Editing Group & Sijia Hu)

(Interview with Professor Lei Aiwen:http://en.whu.edu.cn/info/1050/1770.htm)