Qian Yi was born into a family which specialized in Chinese studies, and she is the leading person in the field of environmental engineering studies in China, and holds important leading positions in many academic institutions; Professor Qian Yi is from the School of Environment, Tsinghua University.

Prof. Qian Yi graduated from the engineering program of Tong Ji University, Shanghai in 1956; in 1957, she entered Tsinghua University as a postgraduate, from where, after her graduation, she has remained at Tsinghua as a teacher up to the present. She was a director of the academic committee of Tsinghua University, and director of the State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control. In 1994, Prof. Qian Yi was elected academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; currently she is a professor at the School of Engineering, Tsinghua University.

Over the past ten years, Prof. Qian Yi has committed herself to studies of high-efficiency and low-cost waste-water treatment technologies that are suitable for China’s situation, and has conducted in-depth research on the characteristics, treatment mechanisms and technologies of bio-degrading of refractory organics; she has hosted many significant national science projects related to studies of environmental science and has achieved fruitful research outcomes and productive academic work. She has also dedicated herself to the promotion of clean production, recycling economy and ecological civilization construction; she has been actively involved in environmental legislation and has contributed proposals and ideas for national environmental policies. As a reward for her outstanding achievements in environmental protection, she has received many national awards, including three second-class prizes and one third-class prize in the National Science and Technology Progress Awards, one third-class prize in the National Science and Technology Invention Prizes, one first-class Natural Science Award from the Chinese Academy of Science, two first-class prizes and two second-class prizes in the Science and Technology Progress Awards of the State Education Committee.

As the most remarkable individual in China’s environmental engineering science studies, Prof. Qian Yi’s contributions have also been recognized worldwide; since 1989, she has been invited to give lectures at the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Imperial College London, U.K., Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and other universities. In 2000, invited as a Fulbright outstanding scholar, she paid a visit to seven U.S.A. cities and gave twelve academic lectures.

Prof. Qian Yi has long dedicated herself to teaching; over the past decades she has been strongly committed to the education of talent for environmental protection; the course in “environmental protection and sustainable development” which she developed and ran has been elected as a national level excellent course, and the textbook that carries the same name as the course and which she co-authored has received the first-class prize in the Excellent Textbooks Awards of the Ministry of Education in 2002; she has supervised over thirty Master’s students and over thirty doctorate students; she has demonstrated the great spirit of great masters: self-discipline, self-improvement, and social commitment; she has influenced and fostered several generations of talent for our country’s environmental engineering science and cultivated a great number of academic leaders; she was acclaimed as National Master Teachers (2007) and has made significant contributions to the education of our country’s environmental engineering science.