Date: March 29, 2022

Translator: MENG Yangxiangqi

Martin G. Banwell, the 2021 recipient of the Chinese Government Friendship Award, has been appointed as the first dean of the Institute for Advanced and Applied Chemical Synthesis. In his 40-year career as a doctoral supervisor, he has educated 81 doctoral students, 15 of them Chinese. 

(Martin G. Banwell)

In 2013 Banwell joined the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (also known as the 111 Program) for the innovation and modernization of traditional Chinese medicine, led by Yao Xinsheng, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of JNU’s Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Natural Medicine. Banwell became a chair professor in the Guangdong Province Universities and Colleges Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme in 2016.

Previously, he had worked at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the University of Melbourne in Australia, the Australian National University and the Australian Academy of Sciences. Because of his long-term dedication to research on the total synthesis of natural products, the team under his leadership boasted the largest scale and the most output of scientific research among teams at the Institute of Chemistry in the Australian National University.

To date he has published 402 articles in major international journals of organic synthetic chemistry as a corresponding author and obtained 14 international patents. He is a member of the editorial boards of 13 international academic journals, including Green Chemistry and Chemistry: An Asian Journal.

Banwell was elected a member of the Australian Academy of Sciences in 2014 and has been awarded Officer of the Order of Australia, the highest citizen honor given by the Australian government, for his outstanding contributions in scientific research.

(The awards ceremony of the 2021 Chinese Government Friendship Award. Banwell is in the second row, fourth from right.)

(Banwell and Lan Ping, vice dean of JNU's Institute of Advanced and Applied Chemical Synthesis, working in the lab)

 Banwell's eldest son, James, also teaches at JNU's International School and is responsible for online courses for undergraduate students. Three generations in their family have bonded with China.

Martin Banwell was the first dean of the Institute of Advanced and Applied Chemical Synthesis on JNU's Zhuhai campus after its establishment in October 2018.

He joined JNU as a full-time professor in 2020, becoming the first full-time foreign academician. Thanks to his magnetic effect to attract talents, the institute has introduced a number of well-known scholars from China and abroad after years of construction, gathering many top professors and researchers.

(Banwell in an interview with Guangdong TV's Silk Road Story)

Each year, he receives substantial funding from industry or sends a joint application to funding projects of the Australian Research Council, some of which have already commercialized. International chemical giants, including Dupont in the United States, GlaxoSmithKline in the United Kingdom, BASF in Germany and Biota in Australia, have established extensive cooperative relationships with him.

(Banwell, sixth from right, at the Symposium for Professionals in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area)

On June 22, 2010, then-Vice President Xi Jinping attended the inauguration ceremony of the China-Australia Joint Research Center for functional molecular materials at the Research Institute of Chemistry of the Australian National University in Canberra. Banwell, who was then also director of the institute, hosted the welcoming ceremony and viewed a picture exhibition on China-Australia Science and Technology Cooperation with Xi. 

(Banwell, third from left, hosting the welcoming ceremony, the front row)

(With colleagues at JNU)