Lee Yuan-tseh has earned a spot in a photographic exhibition celebrating the human rights work of Nobel Prize winners, one of 10 laureates selected by U.S.-based National Academy of Sciences for the honor.
The Committee on Human Rights of U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said Lee has dedicated himself to bridging the connection between science and human rights in his leadership of scientific communities both at home and abroad. The exhibition emphasizes his efforts to bring awareness to the cost of climate change.
The fundamental rights of human beings are interconnected with one another, Lee said, adding that man-made climate change has a disproportionately large effect on marginalized ethnic groups.
Lee is also celebrated for championing freedoms of association, speech and scientific practices during his presidencies of Taipei City-based Academia Sinica from 1994 to 2006 and France-based International Council for Science (ICSU) from 2011 to 2014, according to the nation’s premier research institute.
Lee became the first laureate from Taiwan when he won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Dudley Herschbach and John Polanyi. He currently holds professor emeritus status at University of California, Berkley.
Other spotlighted figures include Italian neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini, British biochemist molecular biologist Richard J. Roberts and Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege.
The exhibition titled “Advancing Rights and Freedoms: Science, Human Dignity, and the Nobel Prize” features portraits of the 10 laureates paired with brief overviews of their human rights efforts. It runs March 11 to June 1 at NAS in Washington. (TYT-E)
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