Li Siguang


Li Siguang, also known as J. S. Lee, was a Chinese geologist and politician. He was the founder of China's geomechanics. He was an ethnic Mongol. He made outstanding contributions, which changed the situation of "oil deficiency" in the country, enabling the large-scale development of oil fields to raise the country to the ranks of the world's major oil producers.

Biography

Li was born as Li Zhongkui in Huanggang, Hubei Province. His paternal grandfather was a Mongolian beggar who migrated to Hubei in search of a better livelihood, and his family originally had the Mongol surname "Kuli" or "Ku". He was often known in English as J. S. Lee.
Li studied in Osaka Technical College in Japan and the University of Birmingham in UK in his early years. He became a geological professor at Peking University upon his return from abroad in 1920. Li Siguang was Wuhan University building preparatory chairman from July 1928 to April 1938. He was the president of National Central University in 1932.
After the People's Republic of China was established, Li held the positions of vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and minister of geology.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Xu Chi published Li's biography entitled The Light of Geology, which was widely read and made Li a household name in China.

Family

Li Siguang's daughter Li Lin was a physicist and academician of the CAS. She married Chen-Lu Tsou, a distinguished biochemist and academician, while they were both attending the University of Cambridge in England. Li's family is thus the only one in China that has produced three academicians. Li Lin's daughter, Zou Zongping followed her grandfather's footsteps and became a geologist.