Academician Zhou Lian, born in Jilin Province in March 1940，is a distinguished materials scientist. He graduated from the Department of Metal Materials of Northeastern University in 1963, was sent to CNRS, France from Nov. 1979 to Dec. 1981 as a visiting scholar by the Chinese Ministry of Education, was elected as academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) in 1994, and was conferred with honorary doctor’s degree by the Joseph Fourier University in France in January 2005.

　　From Feb. 1984 to May, 2005, Academician Zhou assumed the office of executive vice president and president of Northwest Institute for Nonferrous Metal Research (NIN) successively. He is now president of the International Union of Material Research Societies (IUMRS), president of the Chinese Materials Research Society(C-MRS), director of the Division of Chemistry, Metallurgy & Materials of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), board member of the International Cryogenic Materials Conference (ICMC), member of the International Organizing Committee of the World Conference on Titanium, etc. He had also been lead scientist of the Experts Committee on Superconductivity of China in 1988-2000, and president of the Chinese Titanium Association (CTA) in 2002-2004 for the first term. Besides, he is representative of the 9th & 10th National People’s Congress of P. R. China.

　　For over 40 years, Academician Zhou has been devoted to the R & D of superconducting and nonferrous metal materials; in recent years, his research work also involves such fields as titanium and its alloys, materials process and fabrication technologies, bio-engineering materials etc. Academician Zhou has made outstanding contributions on the fundamental and practical research, technical development and application expansion of new materials in China. Particularly, he has created three world’s highest records on properties research of the low temperature NbTi superconducting material, Nb3Sn, the high temperature YBCO superconducting material, the B system superconducting material and the novel MgB2 superconducting material. Up to now, he has obtained 15 state or ministry level prizes on scientific achievements, including a Second Grade ‘National Technical Invention Award’, and registered 14 patents.

　　With high prestige, Academician Zhou has been actively engaged in the materials circle at home and abroad. He has led or taken part in many bilateral governmental scientific cooperative projects and hosted or participated in many academic activities. He is adjunct professor and doctoral supervisor in several universities, such as Northeastern University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Northwestern Polytechnical University and so on. He has submitted over 400 academic papers on conferences and periodicals and cultivated 30 Ph. D students and 70 Master students.

　　Academician Zhou has been honored as ‘Personnel Returned from Overseas with Outstanding Contribution’, 'Chinese Experts with Distinguished Contribution’ 'Model Worker in the National Nonferrous Metal Industry’ ‘National Model Worker’, and rewarded with ‘Prize of Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation for Scientific and Technological Progress’ and the first  Xi’an Outstanding Contribution Award of Science & Technology etc.