Zhongwei Shen

Zhongwei Shen (申仲伟, born c. 1964) is a pioneering Chinese-American mathematician who returned to China in 2025 after 40 years in the United States, joining Westlake University in Hangzhou as a Chair Professor in the School of Science. He spent nearly three decades at the University of Kentucky, where he became a Distinguished Professor and served as Chair of the Mathematics Department.

Admitted to Peking University at just 14 years old, Shen is a founding member of the inaugural class of American Mathematical Society Fellows (2012) and received the AMS Centennial Fellowship in 1997. His research sits at the intersection of harmonic analysis and partial differential equations, with particular focus on homogenization theory, boundary value problems in non-smooth domains, and Schrödinger operators.

Shen cited a long-standing desire to return home as the reason for his move, saying: "I never considered going to another country. If I were to leave, it'd have to be China, because that's home." He is drawn to Westlake University for its high-level research focus and internationally diverse mathematics department.