Director of the Center

Ding Kuiling, male, of Han ethnicity, was born in March 1966 in Yongcheng, Henan Province. He holds a Ph.D. in Science and serves as a professor. He joined the Communist Party of China in May 1986 and commenced his professional career in October 1990. Currently, he is the President and Deputy Party Secretary of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress. Additionally, he was a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

He graduated from Zhengzhou University’s Department of Chemistry in 1985 and earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Nanjing University’s same department in 1990. From October 1990 to December 1998, he taught at Zhengzhou University’s Department of Chemistry, advancing from lecturer to associate professor, and then to professor in 1995. During this period, he conducted postdoctoral research at Ryukoku University in Japan (September 1993–September 1994) and served as a visiting scholar at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (October 1997–October 1998). From December 1998 to May 2009, he worked at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, holding various roles including researcher, chair of the labor union, deputy Party secretary, secretary of the disciplinary committee, and deputy director. He was also a visiting professor at Nagoya University’s Center for Materials Science in Japan (August–November 2003). From May 2009 to September 2018, he served as Director of the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In September 2018, he became a member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Executive Vice President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Since September 2019, he has also been the Director of the Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In February 2023, he was appointed President and Deputy Party Secretary of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Academician Ding Kuiling’s research primarily concentrates on organometallic-catalyzed asymmetric reactions and green chemistry. He has proposed and successfully implemented innovative concepts and methodologies for chiral catalyst design, developing novel chiral ligands and catalysts with distinctive frameworks. He serves on the editorial board or as an advisory editor for more than ten internationally renowned chemistry journals, including Angewandte Chemie International Edition and Accounts of Chemical Research. He is also an associate editor of Acta Chimica Sinica and Organic Letters, editor-in-chief of Chinese Journal of Organic Chemistry, and co-chair of Chemistry – A European Journal. Additionally, he functions as a consultant for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) conferences on Organometallic Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis (OMCOS) and Organometallics & Catalysis (OM & Cat).

He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Second Prize of the National Natural Science Award, First Prize of the Shanghai Natural Science Award, Shanghai Natural Science Peony Award, Shanghai Science and Technology Elite Award, Eli Lilly Scientific Excellence Award in Chemistry, Huang Yao-Zeng Organometallic Chemistry Prize (6th), and Chiral Chemistry Award from the Chinese Chemical Society. He also received the inaugural Yoshida Prize from the International Organic Chemistry Foundation (IOCF, Japan), the Humboldt Research Award (Germany), the Shanghai Outstanding Institute Director Award, the Shanghai Outstanding Communist Party Member Award, and the National Outstanding Science and Technology Worker Award.