Maths star Yuan Yuan returns to China after more than 20 years in US

After more than two decades in the United States, internationally recognised mathematician Yuan Yuan has returned to China as a full-time professor at Westlake University in Hangzhou.

He joined Westlake’s Institute for Theoretical Sciences in May, just months after being promoted to full professor at Syracuse University in New York, according to the university’s website.

Yuan is one of four mathematicians recruited by Westlake this summer after long careers in the US. The others are mathematical analysis expert Zhongwei Shen from the University of Kentucky, machine-learning statistician Yiyuan She from Florida State University, and applied and computational mathematician Hai Zhu from the Flatiron Institute in New York.

In an official statement, the leading researcher on complex geometry said he had long hoped to return to China, following in the footsteps of many scholars who had joined Westlake in recent years.

“Maths can really be done anywhere – all you need is paper, a pen and a computer with internet,” he said. “If you have colleagues who share your passion, that makes it even better.”

Westlake University in eastern China’s Hangzhou. Photo: Handout

He added that when he was invited to give a talk at the university last year, he found the campus “first-class” and the people “lively and full of spirit”. As a new-type research-oriented university, Westlake naturally became his first choice, he said.

South China Morning Post