Chen Xiaoming is a professor at School of Chemistry, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU). He completed his Bachelor's degree in July 1983 from SYSU, followed by a Master's degree in July 1986. In March 1992, he earned his Ph.D. from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He then joined to SYSU, and became a Professor in January 1995.
Prof. Chen was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2009 and The World Academy (TWAS) in 2013. He won a number of prestigious academic awards, including China National Natural Science Prize (2007), TWAS prize in Chemistry (2012), International Award of Japan Society of Coordination Chemistry (JSCC) (2020), and Highly Cited Researcher in Chemistry (2014-2023).
He served for a number of academic journals as Associate Editor, Guest Editor, Editorial Board Member, or Advisory Board Member, such as European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry (Wiley), Chemical Communications (RSC), Crystal Growth & Design (ACS), Polyhedron, Chinese Journal of Chemistry, CrystEngComm (RSC), Science China Chemistry (CAS), Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers (CCS & RSC), ACS Central Science (ACS), Coordination Chemistry Reviews, Chemistry – An Asian Journal, Acta Chimica Sinica (CCS), etc.
Prof. Chen's research interests lie in the design, synthesis, and crystal engineering of functional metal-organic/hybrid materials, including metal complexes, coordination polymers and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), as well as their adsorption/separation, catalysis, and electric/magnetic properties. Notably, his group was the first to discover several zinc imidazolates with permanent zeolitic MOF structures including Zinc(II) 2-Methylimidazolate published in 2006 (MAF-4, well-known as ZIF-8), before the term of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) appeared, which has now become the most well-known MOF (applied/concerned by >13,000 publications recorded in Web of Science, as of October, 2024).
