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Award-winning mathematician Wang Xujia back in China after decades in Australia

Westlake University in Hangzhou announces Wang has returned to a full-time chair professorship after nearly 30 years overseas

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World-renowned Chinese-Australian mathematician Wang Xujia, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences, has joined Westlake University in eastern China. Photo: Westlake University
Dannie Pengin Beijing

Wang Xujia, a renowned Chinese-Australian mathematician and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences, has returned to his hometown of Hangzhou to join China’s prestigious Westlake University after nearly three decades abroad.

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Wang left his position as a professor at the Australian National University’s Centre for Mathematics and its Applications – where he has worked since 1995 – to take up his new role in September, his new institute announced on Wednesday.

The 61-year-old, who is now a full-time chair professor of mathematics at Westlake, is among the latest distinguished mathematicians to have left the West for China.

Last week, it was announced that award-winning Chinese mathematician Ma Xiaonan left his decades-long career in Europe to join Nankai University in Tianjin.

Wang is well known in mathematics circles for his work on differential equations, especially non-linear partial differential equations and their applications in geometry and physics.

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In 2002, he joined the ranks of only about 20 mathematicians to receive the Australian Mathematical Society Medal, awarded to members below the age of 4o for outstanding research in the mathematical sciences in Australia.

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