Vol.35 (Dec) 2025 | Article no.1 2026
The 2025 AAPPS-APCTP C. N. Yang Awards were presented to three outstanding young physicists during the 16th Asia Pacific Physics Conference (APPC-16) held in Haikou, China, from October 19–24, 2025. This marks the 14th edition of the award, jointly established in 2019 by the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) and the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) to honor and encourage promising early-career researchers and promote the development of future leaders in physics throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
The C. N. Yang Award is presented annually to candidates who have obtained a Ph.D. in physics or an equivalent degree within ten years from January 1 of the award year. Eligibility requires that the work to be awarded was performed while the nominee had an affiliation to an institution in an AAPPS member country/region and that the nominee maintains such an affiliation at the time of nomination. Self-nomination is not permitted; candidates must be nominated through AAPPS member societies, APCTP member entities, or APPC participants.
For the 2025 award, nominations were received from across the Asia-Pacific region, representing a diverse spectrum of physics disciplines. The selection committee, appointed by the AAPPS Council, AAPPS Divisions, and APCTP, conducted a rigorous multi-step evaluation process, assessing the originality, novelty, impact, and future prospects of each candidate’s contributions. The committee’s deliberations, described as highly challenging due to the exceptional quality of all nominees, ultimately selected three recipients who demonstrated both groundbreaking research achievements and leadership potential.
The award ceremony took place on Monday, October 20, 2025, in the Taishan Grand Ballroom during the opening plenary session of APPC-16. The ceremony commenced at 9:00 AM under the chairmanship of Prof. Tao Xiang, with opening remarks delivered by AAPPS President H. J. Choi, Chinese Physical Society President Jie Zhang, Hainan University President Qing-Ming Luo, and APCTP representative Jae-Hyung Jeon. Following the opening addresses, the C. N. Yang Award ceremony was formally conducted, where each recipient was presented with a monetary prize of US$1,000 and a certificate of recognition.
In keeping with tradition, the recipients delivered commemorative talks later that same day in the Auditorium. Chaired by Prof. Keun-Young Kim, the session ran from 12:50 PM to 13:50 PM and featured presentations spanning the breadth of modern physics:
12:50–13:10 – Fanlong Meng discussed statistical modeling of dynamically crosslinked polymer networks and collective dynamics of active matter
13:10–13:30 – Anatoli Fedynitch presented his computational frameworks for atmospheric neutrino fluxes and hadronic interaction models
13:30–13:50 – Junzhang Ma described his experimental discoveries of novel quasiparticles in quantum materials using ARPES
“For his outstanding contributions in developing statistical theories of soft and active matter”
Prof. Fanlong Meng has established himself as a leading theoretical physicist in the statistical mechanics of complex soft matter systems. His research provides a fundamental understanding of dynamically crosslinked polymer networks, where his model for vitrimer rheology (Nature Commun. 2022) elucidated how dynamic bond exchange alters the viscoelastic response, earning praise from Bingham Medal laureate H.H. Winter. In active matter, Meng developed predictive models for multiflagellated microswimmer propulsion and magnetic microswimmer dynamics, with his 2021 Phys. Rev. Lett. study revealing Bose-Einstein-like condensation in magnetic microswimmers highlighted in Rev. Mod. Phys. He also pioneered the theory of elastically mediated liquid-liquid phase separation (Phys. Rev. Lett. 2020), a concept applied by APS Polymer Prize winner J. Gong to explain structure frustration in self-healing gels. Meng’s comprehensive theoretical toolkit now guides the rational fabrication of soft materials with precisely engineered properties.
PhD: July 2015, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Current Position: Professor, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (since January 2023)
“For his outstanding contributions to astroparticle physics, including leadership in atmospheric neutrino flux modeling and the creation of widely used software tools that have enabled major advances in cosmic ray and neutrino research”
Dr. Anatoli Fedynitch is a recognized young leader in computational astroparticle physics. His Matrix Cascade Equations (MCEq) code is the principal tool for computing atmospheric neutrino and muon fluxes across GeV–PeV energies, now the standard external flux model for IceCube and KM3NeT. He authored the updated event generator DPMJET-III-19.3 and co-developed SIBYLL 2.3c/d, realistic models for high-energy nuclear collisions used by the Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array. Fedynitch led theoretical studies of multi-messenger signals from ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and developed the “Treasure Maps” methodology (Astrophys. J. 2023) to pinpoint promising source directions. As IceCube institutional lead for Taiwan and convener of the atmospheric neutrino NMO group, and as a key contributor to Telescope Array, he has built a vital bridge between the Asia-Pacific community and global astroparticle physics efforts.
PhD: November 2015, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Current Position: Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan (since October 2021)
“For his outstanding discovery and characterization of multiple emergent quasiparticles across diverse crystalline systems”
Dr. Junzhang Ma has emerged as a leading experimentalist in condensed matter physics, renowned for discovering and characterizing various emergent novel quasiparticles. His celebrated discoveries include three-component fermions and topological Fermi arcs in tungsten carbide (Nature Physics 2018), hourglass fermions in KHgSb (Science Advances 2017), and unpaired singular Weyl points in PtGa (Nature Communications 2021). Moreover, Ma pioneered studies of bosonic quasiparticles, reporting the first observation of robust mobile excitons in quasi-1D metal TaSe₃ (Nature Materials 2022). His work on kagome metals such as GdV₆Sn₆ revealed tunable topological Dirac surface states and van Hove singularities (Science Advances 2022). Since joining City University of Hong Kong in 2021, Ma has built a prolific research program, publishing 17 papers including in Nature, Nature Materials, and multiple Science Advances and Nature Communications articles, many as corresponding author.
PhD: July 2017, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Current Position: Associate Professor, City University of Hong Kong (early promotion in 2025)
The C. N. Yang Award continues to fulfil its mission of recognizing excellence and fostering the next generation of physics leaders in the Asia-Pacific region. The 2025 recipients exemplify the innovative spirit and interdisciplinary reach of modern physics, contributing to fundamental knowledge while building bridges between theory, experiment, and computation. Their achievements, celebrated at APPC-16 in Haikou, reflect the vibrant and collaborative nature of the Asia-Pacific physics community.
No data were generated or analyzed during this article.
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