China Vitae

Biography

Shi Yafeng, male, Han nationality, is a native of Haimen, Jiangsu Province. He graduated from the Historical Geography Department of Zhejiang University in 1942 and obtained a master's degree from the university in 1944. Shi is a senior academician and an expert on geography and glaciology.

Considered a founder of Chinese modern glaciology, Shi served as a researcher at the Nanjing Geography and Lake Institute and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Lanzhou Glacier Frozen Earth Institute. His contributions include dividing Chinese glacier studies into polar territoriality, sub-territoriality, and maritime.

Shi later directed efforts to compile glacier reports and monographs on the Qilan Mountains, Tian Mountain as well as the Himalayan and Karakorum Mountains. His studies also discovered minor glacial period, kata-glacial period, and the maximum glacial period and features of the western mountain areas in China.

In 1980, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.