Shiing-Shen Chern (1911-2004) was one of the leading differential geometers of the twentieth century. In 1946, he founded the Mathematical Institute of Academia Sinica in Shanghai, which was later moved to Nanking. In 1981, he founded the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) at Berkeley and acted as the director until 1984. In 1985, he founded the Nankai Institute of Mathematics in Tianjin. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1975; the Wolf Prize in mathematics in 1984; and the Shaw Prize in mathematical sciences in 2004.Chern''s works span all the classic fields of differential geometry: the Chern-Simons theory; the Chern-Weil theory, linking curvature invariants to characteristic classes; Chern classes; and other areas such as projective differential geometry and webs that are mathematically rich but currently have a lower profile. He also published work in integral geometry, value distribution theory of holomorphic functions, and minimal submanifolds.Inspired
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