Xie Xide(1921 — 2000)

As a teenager, Xie Xide contracted skeletal tuberculosis of the hip that kept her bedridden for nearly four years. Rather than giving up her studies, she taught herself English, mathematics, and physics from her bedroom. She would walk with difficulty for the rest of her life, but this ordeal forged her iron determination.

In 1951, she earned her doctorate in physics at the prestigious MIT, in the United States. The following year, determined to serve the young People's Republic of China, she returned home with her husband by a roundabout route through England, because the American authorities were trying to hold on to the scientists they had trained.

In 1958, together with the physicist Huang Kun, she wrote “Semiconductor Physics,” a foundational textbook that would train generations of Chinese engineers and researchers at a time when these technologies were still in their infancy in the country.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), she was, like many intellectuals, persecuted, removed from her research, and forced into menial tasks. She picked up the thread of her work again as soon as that period ended, without any outward bitterness.

In 1983, she became the first woman to head Fudan University in Shanghai, one of the largest in China. During her tenure, she opened the university widely to international exchanges and helped reconnect Chinese science with the rest of the world.