Prof. Cheng Fang

Professor of the Department of Astronomy at Nanjing University
Academician of the Chinese Academy of Science

Cheng Fang, an astrophysician, graduated from Nanjing University in 1959 and became a professor in 1986 in the Department of Astronomy at Nanjing University. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1995, and elected a Fellow of the Academy of Science for the Developing World (TWAS) in 2005. As a visiting scientist, he engaged in the research of solar physics at Paris Observatory from 1980 to 1982. He successively served as the director of the Department of Astronomy of Nanjing University, the president of the Chinese Astronomical Society, and the vice-president of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

Professor Fang was in charge of the design and the construction of the Solar Tower Telescope of Nanjing University. The telescope was built in 1980, and as the only one of its kind in China, has been successfully put into operation. Using non-LTE theory, he and his collaborators have successfully developed a set of practical methods and programs that have achieved important results. A series of semi-empirical atmospheric models of solar active phenomena, such as solar flares, sunspots, plages, prominences, microflares, and Ellerman bombs, have been obtained. The method for the spectral diagnostics of non-thermal particles in flares has been investigated and proposed. The dynamic models of flares have been deduced.

Professor Fang has published more than 270 papers. He has written the book of ``Physics of Solar Active Regions'' with co-authors of Professors Ming De Ding and Peng Fei Chen.

He has won several national and ministerial major scientific research achievement awards, including one second-place National Science and Technology Advanced Award (1985), one third-place National Natural Science Award (1997) and two first-place Science and Technology Awards by the Ministry of Education of China. He received the Science and Technology Progress Award of Ho Leung and Ho Lee (HLHL) Foundation in 2004, and received the title of ``Honoris Docteur Causa of Paris Observatory'' in 2008.