He has won the Singapore Outstanding Young Scientist Award (2000), the Singapore National Science Award (2003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China Overseas, Hong Kong and Macao Young Scholars Collaborative Research Fund (2003), and the National Science Foundation for Outstanding Young Scholars (2006). . Researcher Zhang Donghui is committed to developing effective new theoretical and computational methods to study atomic and molecular motion, reactions, energy transfer, etc. that occur in the gas phase, clusters, solid surfaces, and biomolecules.
In 1988, when he was still studying in college, he passed the Sino-US Joint Physics Ph.D. Examination (CUSPEA) chaired by Dr. Li Zhengdao, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and went to New York, USA in 1989. He studied for a doctorate degree at the university and was engaged in research on quantum chemical reaction kinetics. By the end of 1993, he made breakthrough progress in using time-dependent scattering theory to calculate atomic reactions. Obtained a Doctor of Science (PHD) degree in 1994 and won the highest award awarded to graduates by the School of Humanities and Natural Sciences of New York University (this award is only awarded to the most academically accomplished student by the college every year). After graduation, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and was still engaged in research on quantum chemical reaction kinetics. According to relevant data, he published dozens of papers, 20 of which were published in the world's most authoritative journals in chemical physics. Zhang Donghui has taken a leading position in the world in the study of precise calculations of polyatomic reactions.
In 1997, Zhang Donghui came to teach at the National University of Singapore. The following are some comments from some newspapers and experts on Zhang Donghui’s research results:
Singapore’s "Lianhe Zaobao" commented: Professor Zhang has successfully An important equation was developed that allowed computers to simulate the reaction of three hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. At present, he is the only one in the world who has achieved this result. Professor Zewei, an Egyptian-American who won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on the use of ultra-fast lasers for chemical reactions, quoted Zhang Donghui's theory in his Nobel Prize speech.
Zhang Donghui's theory proves that an experiment conducted by a group of German scientists in 1993 may be wrong. If that experiment turns out to be incorrect, scientists around the world will try to redo it.
A professor at the University of Chicago said: With the scientific research results made by Zhang Donghui, I cannot find another theoretical molecular scientist under the age of 35.