Chinese Universities Report Loss of 23 Professors in 2 Weeks

A Fudan University sign is seen on the campus in Shanghai on Dec. 18, 2019. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

Top Chinese universities have reported the loss of 23 professors, five of whom were under 60, within the space of less than two weeks during January. The youngest one was only 45 years old.

Academician Sheng Zhiyong was also among the dead. Born in 1920, he was an expert in burn surgery and the former vice president of the 304 Hospital, a military hospital.

As a military surgeon, Mr. Sheng had participated in the Korean War, the Sino-Indian and Sino-Vietnamese border wars.

The official obituary praised him as one of the most important pioneers of burns and trauma medicine in China, who established the first intensive care unit in the entire army and the first liquid nitrogen preservation bank for allogeneic dermatology in China.

He has been a recipient of the State Council’s special allowance since 1991.

5 Middle-Aged Professors Pass Away

Professor Mi Wenbo, a member of the Party Committee of the School of Science at Tianjin University, former head and a distinguished professor of the Department of Physics, and former chairman of the Tianjin Vacuum Society, passed away in Tianjin on Jan. 22 due to illness. He was 45 years old.

Mr. Mi primarily engaged in research in the fields of spintronics physics, materials, and devices. He was selected for the Ministry of Education’s New Century Talent Program, the first tier of Tianjin’s 131 Talent Program, and was the leader of the Tianjin 131 Innovative Team.

Chen Xiaoyun, a female professor of psychology at the School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, passed away in Shanghai on Jan. 20 due to illness. She was 59 years old.

She had been a visiting scholar at Moscow University and had taught at Northwest Normal University and Fudan University. She served as a support expert for the United Nations Children’s Fund projects and was the vice president of the Shanghai Psychological Management Society. She was also selected for the “Shanghai Pujiang Talent” program.

Professor Xu Xiaodong, Associate Curator of the Museum of Cultural Heritage of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, passed away on Jan. 19 at the age of 56. A doctoral degree graduate from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Fine Arts, she was mainly interested in ancient Chinese jade, gold and silver, amber, and palace arts of the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as the exchange between Chinese and Western ancient arts.

From 2007 to 2013, she worked at the Department of Antiquities of the National Palace Museum in Beijing as an associate research librarian and research librarian in the conservation and research of jade and gold wares. Since 2013, she has been an associate curator of cultural heritage at the Institute of Cultural Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Shi Xiaohua, an expert in the application of computer intelligence technology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and an executive member of the Information System Professional Committee of the Chinese Computer Society, passed away on Jan. 17 at the age of 47 in Shanghai Renji Hospital due to a sudden illness.

Mr. Shi received his master’s degree in intelligence and a doctorate in computer software and theory from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He served as deputy director of the library system development department, director of the platform and technology support department, and director of the university’s information technology department.

Zhang Hong, an expert in the integration of Chinese and Western medicine, died on Jan. 16 at the age of 55. He was the deputy director of the Center for Rehabilitation Medicine, director of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Yueyang Hospital of Integrative Chinese and Western Medicine, affiliated with the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and director of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, chief physician, professor, and doctoral supervisor.

Yueyang Hospital of Integrative Medicine is the first Chinese medicine medical institution established after the founding of the Communist Party of China, and is a national key hospital of integrative medicine.

The official announcement said that Mr. Zhang was a national key research and development program project leader.

These deaths occurred in the second half of January. The Epoch Times has previously reported that in the first half of the month, Chinese universities lost three middle-aged scholars who died under the age of 60.