Chen Fahu

Chen Fahu (; born December 1962) is a Chinese geographer, geologist and climatologist who has served as Director of the Institute of Tibet Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2018. He formerly served as professor and Vice President of Lanzhou University, and Dean of the university's College of Earth and Environment Sciences. He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and The World Academy of Sciences.

Education and career Chen was born in December 1962 in Danfeng County, Shaanxi, China. He earned his B.S. in physical geography in 1984, his M.S. in physical geography in 1987, and his Ph.D. in Quaternary sciences in 1990, all from Lanzhou University. His doctoral advisor was academician Li Jijun. He also studied under academician Shi Yafeng. As so much time had passed since its initial discovery, it took them six years to ascertain that the fossil came from the Baishiya Karst Cave. In 2018, Zhang led a systematic excavation of the cave and discovered numerous palaeolithic tools and animal bones bearing cut marks. In collaboration with Jean-Jacques Hublin at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, they used palaeoproteomic analysis to confirm that the mandible belonged to the first known Denisovan outside Siberia, and the earliest human known to have lived on the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau, dating to 160,000 years ago.

Chen was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015, and of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2016.