On March 20, Professor Robert Schlögl, President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, presented the 2025 Humboldt Research Award to Professor Ying Jiang, a Boya Distinguished professor at the School of Physics and Director of the International Center for Quantum Materials at Peking University, in Bamberg, Germany. Prof. Jiang is internationally recognized for groundbreaking advances in scanning probe microscopy and pioneering molecular-level understanding of water and ice. His seminal work unraveled the quantum nature of hydrogen bonds and revealed novel properties of low-dimensional water and ice.

Established in 1972 by the Alexander Humboldt Foundation in Germany, the Humboldt Research Award is a lifetime achievement award specially granted to internationally renowned academics from abroad, whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had significant impact on their own discipline and beyond. Candidates must be nominated by established researchers in Germany and undergo anonymous review by international peers. This award is the highest honor conferred by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to international scholars. To date, dozens of Nobel laureates have received the Humboldt Research Award.

Prof. Jiang has been committed to experimental condensed matter physics and surface physics. His remarkable research achievement overs from the development of innovative scanning probe microscopy techniques to the application of those techniques to probe emergent phenomena in complex systems at atomic scale. He has published numerous articles in top international journals, including 12 in Science and Nature. His relevant work was twice highlighted annually by the American Physical Society (APS), twice selected as "Top 10 Scientific Advances in China," and included in middle-school textbooks. He received a few prestigious honors and awards, such as APS Fellow, Nishina Asia Award, AAA Robert T. Poe Prize, Xplorer Prize, and New Cornerstone Investigator.