Chao Tang

Chao Tang
Chao Tang
Fields	Physics, Biology
Institutions	Peking University
Alma mater	University of Science and Technology of China; University of Chicago (PhD)
Doctoral advisor	Leo Kadanoff
Known for	Self-organized criticality; Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld sandpile

Chao Tang (汤超) is a Chair Professor of Physics and Systems Biology at Peking University. He had his undergraduate training at the University of Science and Technology of China, and received a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Chicago. In his early career, he worked on problems in statistical physics, dynamical system and complex systems. In 1987, along with Per Bak and Kurt Wiesenfeld, he proposed a concept and developed a theory for self organization in certain complex systems, which they coined self-organized criticality. The model they used to illustrate the idea is referred to as the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld "sandpile" model. His current research interest is at the interface between physics and biology. Specifically, he focuses on systems biology and works on problems such as protein folding, cell cycle regulation, function-topology relationship in biological network and cell fate determination. He was a Professor at the University of California San Francisco before returning to China full-time in 2011. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the founding director of the interdisciplinary Center for Quantitative Biology at Peking University and the founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Quantitative Biology.

Selected publications