In the spring of 1985, Zhongwei Shen was a master's student at the Academy of Mathematics, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, when he left Beijing to attend a conference on harmonic analysis at Hangzhou University. During this trip, he visited the West Lake for the first time, spending four peaceful and enjoyable hours by the water while walking with colleagues.
In the summer of 2025, Shen opened the door to his brand-new office in Westlake University's Academic Ring. Just a day earlier, the former University of Kentucky professor had arrived in Shanghai, ready to start a new chapter.
After 40 years, Shen had come full circle back to Hangzhou, a place that felt both familiar and brand new.
On July 1, Shen, a founding member of the inaugural class of American Mathematical Society Fellows, officially joined the School of Science and the Institute for Theoretical Sciences at Westlake University as a chair professor of mathematics.
The 14-Year-Old Freshman at Peking University
Some say Shen's legendary journey began when he got into Peking University at the age of 14. But Shen chalks it up to starting school early, with a little bit of luck.
Prof. Zhongwei Shen was born and raised in Hengyang, Hunan. His father worked as a technician at the Northwest Nuclear Industrial Base, while his mother taught math at a local school. Shen was mostly raised by his maternal grandparents. He started primary school at the age of 5, younger than most kids. His mother, worried he might distract the older students, sat him in the last row of the classroom. When Shen was 9, he and his mother moved to join his father at the Northwest Nuclear Industrial Base. He stayed there through high school.
Shen was accepted into the Mathematics Department at Peking University in 1978, the year after China resumed its national college entrance exam, or gaokao. At the time, he was only 14 and in his first year of senior high school. He'd been inspired by a feature story about mathematician Jingrun Chen and his work on Goldbach's conjecture. From that moment, Shen set his sights on studying math at Peking University.
When asked how he managed to pass the exam on his first try, Shen replied humbly: "The textbooks were pretty shallow back then. I just taught myself and took the test. I was lucky."
Shen often describes his journey as a string of fortunate events—he always seemed to meet a professor who noticed his talent and offered support. But when you look at his résumé, it's clear that more than just luck was at play.
In his final year as an undergraduate at Peking University, Prof. Le Yang, a renowned mathematician and the founding president of the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), came to recruit students. Shen was recommended by Prof. Minde Cheng, a respected math professor and educator at Peking University, to Prof. Ruilin Long, who would later head the Institute of Mathematics at CAS. And so, CAS became Shen's next stop.
In 1984, Prof. Elias M. Stein, an American mathematician who was a leading figure in harmonic analysis, visited Peking University along with six other top scholars. Shen attended their lectures and struck up friendships with Prof. Robert Fefferman and Prof. Carlos Kenig from the University of Chicago. "I was really interested in their research," he said. That experience pushed him to apply for a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. At the time, the U.S. was leading the charge in mathematical research, and President Yang of CAS encouraged students to continue their studies abroad.
After earning his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, Shen moved on to Princeton to study harmonic analysis under Stein himself. "He had a huge influence on me," Shen recalled.
In the 1990s, Shen secured a teaching post at Purdue University. "It wasn't easy finding a teaching job in the U.S. back then," he said. "A lot of people with math Ph.D.s had to leave academia."
Looking back, Shen describes his journey as remarkably smooth, unable to pinpoint any period of significant hardship. But while he credits much of his success to luck, anyone can recognize this as the modest refrain of a dedicated scholar whose accomplishments were more than a matter of good fortune.
Mathematics
In the grand landscape of mathematics, Shen's work falls under the umbrella of analysis, a branch that grew out of calculus and focuses on topics such as functions, limits, continuity, differentiation, and integration. In layman's terms, Shen studies how things change and what happens as they approach infinity.
He first encountered this field during his undergraduate years, and it quickly took root. "I guess we all like to do what we're good at," he said with a modest smile. "I might have a knack for analysis, but algebra and topology can still make me sweat."
More specifically, Shen specializes in partial differential equations and harmonic analysis.
Most people are familiar with equations like x² = 1, which has two solutions: x = 1 and x = -1. In such cases, the answer is a number. In differential equations, however, the answer is often a function. These equations describe how functions change and solving them helps us understand those changes.
Partial differential equations are a more advanced version of this concept. At their core, they're still a game of "finding the function." The key difference is that, while ordinary differential equations involve a single variable, PDEs involve multiple variables. Researchers in this field explore whether solutions exist, how many there might be, and what properties those solutions have.
Harmonic analysis, on the other hand, is about breaking down complex functions into simpler, more regular ones. It analyzes how these building blocks relate to one another, and then reassembles them to understand the original function. At the heart of harmonic analysis is a powerful tool called the Fourier transform. If a function were a complicated sound, the Fourier transform would be the tool that breaks it down into its fundamental notes.
Over the years, Shen's curiosity about equations led him deeper into harmonic analysis. He began using it as a tool to study the nature of partial differential equations and tackle some of the field's classic problems.
Among his many contributions, he developed a new real-variable method, which produced the best-known results for the solvability of the Lp boundary value problems for elliptic systems in Lipschitz domains. Together with his collaborators, he established the optimal uniform regularities for boundary value problems in elliptic homogenization. He also introduced a new scaling function, which has played a critical role in the study of Schrödinger operators with electric and magnetic potentials.
In 2012, Shen was named a member of the inaugural class of American Mathematical Society Fellows. Four years later, in 2016, he was honored as a Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky.
Mathematician
The University of Kentucky is located in Lexington, a city of 300,000 people.
Shen spent three decades teaching in the university's Department of Mathematics. He was first drawn to the school by its strong research in harmonic analysis, which he said was "greatly helpful to my own work." Over the years, he became a professor, then department chair. It was during his time at Kentucky that he was named a Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and selected as a member of the inaugural class of American Mathematical Society Fellows.
In his research, Shen is all about studying change. But personally, he doesn't think much about changing himself. To him, where the research happens matters far less than the research itself.
He recalled an interview of a fellow mathematician, who compared doing math to walking through a dark room. "The room is pitch black, and you keep bumping into things. Sometimes you have no idea how to move forward. But once you find the light switch - maybe it's the right angle to look at the problem or the right method to solve it - you flip it on and suddenly everything becomes clear. Then you move into the next room and start all over again," Shen said. "You break a big question into many small ones. With perseverance, you conquer them one by one."
At Kentucky, Shen ran a tight schedule. He taught classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and reserved Tuesdays and Thursdays for research. Roughly 40% of his time went to teaching, 50% to research, and the rest to administrative tasks.
One might think a mathematician can work anywhere with just a pen and some paper, but Shen said that's far from reality. "Thirty minutes or an hour doesn't really count when you're doing math," he explained. "You need at least half a day, sometimes several days, to really get immersed." That's why many of his breakthroughs happened during summer breaks.
Students who majored in mathematics between 2007 and 2011 might remember that Thursdays were not the best time to try visiting their dean. Shen would stay home that day to focus. "There was always someone knocking on my office door," he said with a shake of his head. "I couldn't get any peace or quiet."
So what does he do when he hits a wall with a problem? Shen's approach is simple: Set it aside and work on something else. He recalled feeling stuck during his Ph.D. years. "When I was younger, I'd stay up late into the night trying to push through. I don't do that anymore—it just ruins your sleep." He paused, smiling, before he added, "And I realized most of the solutions I came up with after midnight were wrong anyway."
In Shen's calendar, teaching and research take up nearly every square. He didn't even attend the American Mathematical Society's award ceremony. "They mailed me the certificate," he said casually, as if it had been just another Amazon package.
A New Beginning as a Researcher and a Professor
Shen has already started doing the math for his work at Westlake. "I noticed that Westlake plans to host 3,000 Ph.D. students and 2,000 undergraduates in the future," he mentioned during a conversation on his very first day there.
Although he spent over four decades in the U.S., Shen had always hoped to return to China. "I never considered anywhere else," he said. "If I had to move, it'd be China, because that’s home."
Shen first heard about Westlake University earlier than most: "Probably around 2016 or 2017," he recalled. At that time, it was still called the Westlake Institute for Advanced Study. "I was drawn to its mission—Excellence, Refinement, Research-Oriented," he said. "And I was impressed by how international the mathematics department was. I knew this was the place for me."
Now a chair professor at Westlake, Shen has officially joined the team—and he's planning to spend the coming decades "solving problems and advancing the development of mathematics."
In recent years, collaboration has become more common in mathematical research. Shen shared a fun fact: There's no such thing as a "first author" in math papers. Authors are typically listed alphabetically. "That's because it's hard to say who contributed more," he explained. "Each mathematician brings a different skill set, a different perspective—we all have different tools in our toolbox." Shen is eager to collaborate with his new colleagues at Westlake. "Our chances are better when we work together."
He's also excited to step back into the classroom. Teaching has always been a part of his life. At the University of Kentucky, he taught three courses a year, some to undergraduates and others to Ph.D. students. "I enjoy teaching, especially undergraduates—ideally freshmen, because they're so passionate." His face lit up as he talked about it. "My job is to help them learn how to approach a math problem. Eventually, they'll experience the beauty of it. You look at a complex formula and think, 'There's no way this is the only solution.' But after days or weeks of trying, you realize, 'This really is the only way.' That's the moment it clicks."
Shen joked that researching a tough problem without any inspiration can sometimes feel like a waste of time. "But teaching never feels pointless. Even if you don't solve a big problem, your students learn something—and you end up understanding the material better yourself."
Our final discussion covered a question on the minds of many students: How do you know if you should major in math—or ultimately pursue research in the field?
"Passion is important," Shen said candidly, "but you also have to be good at it. Otherwise, it'll be a tough journey." Then he added, "That said, math is such a fundamental subject, it opens doors to other fields. You can still end up doing something else later."
That kind of change didn't happen for Shen. From his first solo walk around the West Lake in 1985 to working now at Westlake University, Shen is still doing what he loves.
