Engineer advocates youth astronomy education

After earning his PhD in 2009, Jiang Peng, now 47, joined the team behind the world's largest single-dish radio telescope and now serves as its chief engineer. As a deputy to the National People's Congress, he hoped to see astronomy more integrated into primary and secondary school curricula to ignite children's first spark of scientific curiosity.

When Jiang first heard of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) project, he was astounded by its unimaginable structural and scale challenges. "I have an insatiable curiosity and a passion for tackling tough problems. I was eager to discover how this project would be realized," he said.

Motivated by that drive, he joined the FAST team.