China’s President Presents Top Foreign Science and Technology Award to LSU Professor
01/16/2018
On January 8, Chinese president Jinping Xi presided over the 2017 State Natural Science
Awards in the Great Hall of China. Ward Plummer was the first to greet the president
(center), here shown shaking hands with Chinese Premier Keqiang Li. Later in the ceremony,
President Xi personally presented the certificate for international scientific cooperation
to Plummer.Photo Credit: Xinwen Lianbo
BATON ROUGE – China’s President Jinping Xi presented the 2017 International Science
and Technology Cooperation Award of the People’s Republic of China to Professor Earl
Ward Plummer, a faculty member in the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy. Plummer
was one of seven people to receive this award for his contribution to the development
of science and technology in China.
Created in 1994 by the State Council, this award is presented to foreign experts or
organizations that have made important contributions to China’s science and technology
undertaking and development. The award is presented to no more than 10 individuals
or organizations each year.
“I am honored to have received this award for international collaboration,” Plummer
said. “In my mind, what is most significant is that in some small way, I may have
played a role in the history of science and the emergence of China as a world leader
in science and technology.”
Plummer is a leading scientist in condensed matter physics, especially in surface
science. He has been recognized as the pioneer in the spectroscopy of single atoms
on surfaces; in the discovery of surface states and multipole plasmon modes of metals;
and in the precise measurement of the many-body effects on surface electronic structures.
His discovery of charge density waves at the metal/semiconductor interface has inspired
research on critical phenomena in low-dimensional systems. 
Plummer has mentored many young Chinese physicists and has actively encouraged them
to return to China. In 2000, with Enge Wang and Zhenyu Zhang, he founded the International
Center of Quantum Structures, or ICQS, in the Institute of Physics at the Chinese
Academy of Sciences, and served as the chief scientific advisor. ICQS has produced
many top Chinese physicists and fostered scientific collaborations, which has led
to numerous influential research achievements. ICQS has played a critical role in
promoting Chinese physicists on the international stage. Many founding members of
ICQS have become leaders in the fields of science and technology in China. Other universities
and institutions in China have adopted this innovative model of international collaboration.
Plummer is currently a visiting fellow in the Institute of Physics at the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.
In addition to Plummer, the other recipients of the 2017 International Science and Technology Cooperation Award of the People’s Republic of China were Salikhov Shavkat, a biochemist from Uzbekistan; Shoucheng Zhang, a theoretical condensed matter physicist from the U.S. (Stanford); Philip David Coates, a polymer processing scientist from the U.K.; Delian Chen, a climate scientist from Sweden; Yang Shi, an epigenetic and chromatin biologist from the U.S. (Harvard); and Polichronis-Thomas Spanos, a stochastic dynamics and nonlinear mechanics scientist from the U.S. (Rice).
Contact Mimi LaValle
LSU Physics & Astronomy
225-439-5633
mlavall@lsu.edu
Alison Satake
LSU Media Relations
225-578-3870
asatake@lsu.edu