Lai Ming-chiao (left) and Su Huey-jen (right)

Taipei, March 22 (CNA) Huey-jen Jenny Su (蘇慧貞), president of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, and Michael Ming-chiao Lai (賴明詔), a former NCKU president, have been named among the top 100 prize-winning researchers, academicians, innovators and leaders in Asia Pacific region.

In the latest edition of the Asian Scientist 100, Su and Lai were the only two Taiwanese on the list of 100 honorees who won national or international prizes in 2017 for their scientific research or leadership.

Lai, cited by the Singapore magazine as a pioneer in coronavirus research, is a famed scientist in his field and a highly esteemed leader in the world of higher education.

Su, a public health expert, was cited for her outstanding leadership, after she received the 2017 Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health's Leadership Award for her timely and effective response to two emergency events in Tainan City -- a dengue fever outbreak in 2015 and a deadly magnitude 6.4 earthquake the following year.

Also listed in the same leadership category were Subra Suresh, president of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU); Lam Khin Yong, NTU's vice-president for research; Chang Meeman of China's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology; and Ajoy Kumar Ray of the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology.

This year's list of top 100 Asian Scientists included honorees from China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, 22 of whom were women.

The magazine said one of the aims of the annual honor list is to encourage young people in the Asian Pacific region to seek careers in science.

(By Chang Jung-hsiang and S.C. Chang)
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