Dr. Ho Kwang Mao is the Director of Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in China, and a senior staff scientist at the Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institute for Science. He received Ph.D. degree in 1968 from the University of Rochester, and worked at the Geophysical Laboratory on high-pressure research ever since.  He has led numerous breakthroughs in experimental high-pressure science.  In the 1970-80’s, he advanced the static high-pressure capabilities beyond 300 GPa which was an order of magnitude higher than the previous record, thus greatly expanding the field.  Subsequently, he and his group pioneered the integration of pressure with high-temperature and cryogenic conditions and optical, electromagnetic, and synchrotron x-ray probes that enable a full range of in-situ, high P-T, condensed-matter investigations.  The results have made major impacts on fundamental physics, as well as applications in geophysics and astrophysics. 
Ho-kwang Mao is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and Academia Sinica (Taiwan), a Foreign Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences (China) and Royal Society of London (UK), and Fellow of the American Physical Society, American Geophysical Union, Geochemical Society, and European Association for Geochemistry.  Among his prizes and distinctions are the Balzan Prize (Balzan Foundation), Inge Lehmann Medal (American Geophysical Union), Gregori Aminoff Prize (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), Roebling Medal (Mineralogical Society of America), Arthur L. Day Prize (National Academy of Sciences, USA) and P. W. Bridgman Gold Medal (AIRAPT).