HKUST’s Associate Professor in Biochemistry Prof Xia Jun has been named Young Scientist 2008 by Elsevier, the world’s leading research publisher of scientific and medical literature and the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning’s (ASAIHL).
Prof Xia is the first runner-up in the Life Science category of the first annual ASAIHL Scopus Young Scientist Awards 2008, an award designed to recognize outstanding young scientists and researchers in the Asia-Pacific region who have made significant contributions to scholarship and research. The other three categories of awards are Engineering and Technology, Medicine and Agricultural Sciences.
According to the 12 international panelists of the Awards, Prof Xia is honored “for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of his field and the benefit of society.”
Commenting on the award Prof Xia said, “I am deeply honored to receive the award and am thankful to the excellent academic environment at HKUST and the help from my colleagues here.”
The awards are open to researchers and members of academics under 40. Winners were evaluated on three key criteria: number of citations and h-index, number of publications and patents based on Scopus, as well as documented social impact. The h-index is an index that quantifies both the actual scientific productivity and the apparent scientific impact of a scientist.
Prof Xia’s research focuses on the molecular mechanism of protein trafficking and its implication in learning and memory, diabetes and infertility. Over a period of 10 years Prof Xia has published 16 papers which were cited an average of 76 times each and give Prof Xia an h-index of 11 according to Scopus.
Prof Xia graduated from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine with a doctorate degree in Neuroscience in 2001 and joined the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in the following year.
The award is organized by ASAIHL and sponsored by Elsevier which runs Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation tracker in sciences and social sciences.
ASAIHL was established in 1956 as an initiative to support and promote excellence in teaching, learning and national and regional public service. Based in Thailand, ASAIHL has 166 member universities in 17 countries across Asia-Pacific, including USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong.
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