Chan is professor emeritus, McGill Univ., Canada, and visiting disting. chair prof., Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ., China. His previous positions include: Professor, chair, dean and vice principal, McGill Univ., and visiting prof., Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg. He has gained international respect for his contributions to the use of organosilicon reagents, organoindium reagents in aqueous media and ionic liquids, in the synthesis of a variety of organic compounds, including allene oxides, bridgehead alkenes, sclerin, tetra-hydrocannabinol, functionalised decalins, sex pheromones, muscarine, N-acetylneuraminic acid and epigallocatechin gallate. His honours include: Hon. res. prof., Inst. of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, China; Merck, Sharpe and Dohme Award, Chemical Inst. of Canada; Senior Killam Fellow, Canada Council; and R. Lemieux Award, Canadian Society of Chemistry. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Chu and colleagues were the first to achieve superconductivity above liquid nitrogen temperatures with YBaCuO (90 K). Such and related work has established him as a leader in the field of high temperature superconducting oxides. He is Founding Director and Chief Scientist, Texas Center for Superconductivity; Professor of Physics and T.L.L. Temple Chair of Science, University of Houston; President Emeritus and University Professor Emeritus, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; and Honorary Chancellor, Taiwan Comprehensive University System. He has received the U.S. National Medal of Science and numerous international awards, as well as 10 honorary doctorates and 7 honorary professorships. He is a fellow/member of the American Physical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academia Sinica, National Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other organizations.

Bai was educated at the University of Science and Technology of China, Beijing from 1963-68 and Hefei, Anhui, China where he obtained his PhD in 1982. He is professor of statistics in the department of statistics at the Northeast Normal University, China. He was previously: Research associate of the Center for Multivariate Analysis, University of Pittsburgh; senior research associate at the Center for Multivariate Analysis at Penn State University; associate professor, department of statistics, Temple University, Philadelphia; professor of statistics, department of applied mathematics, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan, China; senior fellow and professor of statistics, department of mathematics and department of statistics and applied probability, National University of Singapore.