Wei Shoukun

Wei Shoukun (; 16 September 1907 – 30 June 2014) was a Chinese metallurgist, physical chemist, and materials engineer. Considered a founder of metallurgical physical chemistry in China, he taught for eight decades at ten different universities. He was a founding professor and Vice President of the University of Science and Technology Beijing, and was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.

Early life and education Wei Shoukun was born on 16 September 1907 in Tianjin, China in the final years of the Qing Dynasty. After graduating from the Department of Mining and Metallurgy of Peiyang University (now Tianjin University) in 1929, he was hired by the university as a faculty member. and conducted research at the Institute of Steel Metallurgy, RWTH Aachen University for another year.

Wei died on 30 June 2014 in Beijing, at the age of 106 (107 in East Asian age reckoning). He was the longest-living academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He published five monographs and 140 research papers. He taught four or five generations of Chinese metallurgists at ten universities, including about a dozen academicians and hundreds of leading scientists at major corporations and research institutes.

Wei was a recipient of the State Natural Science Award and the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Technological Sciences. In September 2011, the Science Press of China published Biography of Wei Shoukun, authored by Wu Shizhong (吴石忠) and Jiang Xi (姜曦).