State Council Appoints Dr. Chen Jining President Tsinghua University

Dr. Chen Jining was appointed President of Tsinghua University on February 20, with approval from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council. Dr. Chen succeeds Professor Gu Binglin, who retired from the post at the same time.

The announcement of the new president was made on February 20 at a meeting of senior Tsinghua administrators. Professor Hu Heping, Tsinghua University Council Chairman, hosted the meeting. Mr. Li Zhiyong, Organizing Department Vice Director of the Central Committee of CPC, Mr. Yuan Guiren, Minister of Education, and Mr. Zhao Fengtong, Standing Committee of CPC Beijing Municipal Committee Member and Education Committee of CPC Beijing Municipal Committee Secretary attended the meeting.

Professor Gu Binglin has served as President of Tsinghua University since April 2003. During Professor Gu’s nine-year tenure, Tsinghua has grown in important ways as a global institution of higher learning. Under Professor Gu’s leadership, Tsinghua has made significant achievements in discipline development, teaching, research, and faculty advancement.

Born in 1964, Dr. Chen Jining is a Professor of environmental system analysis. He became a student in Tsinghua’s Department of Environmental Engineering in 1981, got his bachelor's degree from Tsinghua in 1986 and his Ph.D degree from Imperial College London, UK in 1993. He became an assistant researcher of Imperial College London in 1994. He joined the Tsinghua University staff in 1998 as Vice Dean of the Department of Environmental Engineering and became Dean of that Department in 1999. Dr. Chen was appointed as Tsinghua University Vice President in 2006. He became Deputy President of Tsinghua in 2007.

Dr. Chen is currently a member of the National Environmental Advisory Commission, Deputy Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee of MEP, Vice President of the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences, and board member of the Chinese Environmental Foundation, as well as a number of other scientific committees, professional associations and advisory councils related to water and environment. He is or had been member of several environmental journal editorial boards. His research interests include environmental systems analysis and integrated assessment, with focus on uncertainty analysis, applied to environmental engineering, planning and management as well as policies. He has published over 200 papers and has been an author or co-editor to a number of books. He is an owner to over a dozen of registered environmental software and patents, and has won several scientific prizes for his distinguished work.