Professor Xiangqian (Jane) Jiang has now been awarded the Asian Women of Achievement Award at a ceremony on 25 May.

Following her success in becoming the first researcher at a ‘new’ university to receive the prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, Professor Xiangqian (Jane) Jiang has now been awarded the Asian Women of Achievement Award at a ceremony on 25 May.

Jane was nominated for one of the eight categories that comprise the awards.  However, instead of winning that category, Jane won the overall prize of Asian Women of Achievement Award.

Jane, who works in the University’s celebrated Centre for Precision Technologies, is a surface metrology expert specialising on the surfaces of such manufactured components as biomedical implants, photonic lenses and compressor aerofoils.

Jane comes from China where she fought her way up from the assembly line of a bus factory to become the respected scientist that she is today.

Her schooling was cut short at the age of 15 when she was sent to work as a chassis assembly worker during Chairman Mao’s ‘cultural revolution’.  However, over a period of 20 years she never gave up on her ambition to become a scientist.

Jane taught herself at night school, studying for up to five hours every evening to become proficient in engineering, maths and science until she was finally able to go to university.

Jane came to Britain at the age of 40 to work as a research scientist at Birmingham University before moving to Huddersfield.  She is now thought to be the first woman from the Chinese mainland to become a full professor in Britain in any subject.

Jane has published more than 130 papers, co-authored four books and is an editor of two special issues for the Institute of Physics 2006.  Her Asian Women of Achievement Award was presented at the Awa Lloyds TSB Awards Ceremony at the Park Lane Hilton in London.

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