Professor Xue Qi Kun is an internationally renowned experimental physicist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He graduated from the laser physics program of the Department of Optics, Shandong University in 1984, and received his Ph.D. degree in physics from the Institute of Physics, CAS in 1994.  From 1992 to 1999, Professor Xue studied and worked abroad first in the Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Japan, and later in the Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, USA. From 1999 to 2007, he served as research professor and head of Group SF04 of the State Key Laboratory for Surface Physics, Institute of Physics, CAS, where he was appointed Director from 1999 to 2005. Since 2005 he has been Professor of Department of Physics, Tsinghua University and in November of the same year Professor Xue was elected academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 2010 to 2013, he served as Dean of the School of Sciences and Chairman of the Department of Physics, Tsinghua University.  He was appointed as Director of the State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics and in May 2013, as Vice-President of Tsinghua University.

Professor Xue’s main research interests include scanning tunnelling microscopy/spectroscopy, molecular beam epitaxy, topological insulators, interface-induced high temperature superconductivity, and surface science. He has to-date published more than 370 journal papers, including 5 papers in Science, 11 in the sub-journals of Nature, 34 in Physical Review Letters, and has been cited more than 8700 times. He is also member of the editorial board of journals such as Surface Science Reports, Physics Review B, Applied Physics Letters, Journal of Applied Physics and AIP Advances, and he is Chief Editor of Nano Research and Surface Review & Letters.

Professor Xue Qi Kun has been extraordinarily active in the academic field and has been invited to deliver more than 100 international speeches, five of which were invited speeches at the American Physical Society (APS) meetings. He has also received many awards and honors, including the Ho Leung Ho Lee Advancement Award in Science and Technology (2006), the National Natural Science Award (second-class) of China (2005 & 2011), the Third World Academy of Sciences Prize in Physics (2010), the “Qiu-Shi” Award for Outstanding Scientific Research Team (2011), the Tan Kah Kee Science Awards in Mathematical and Physical Sciences (2012), the Distinguished Talent of “Ten Thousand Talents Program” (2013), the “Qiu-Shi” Award for Outstanding Scientist (2014), and the Ho Leung Ho Lee Achievement Award in Science and Technology (2014).