On June 24, 2024, the 2023 National Science and Technology Award Conference was held in the Great Hall of the People. The project “Finite Covers of 3-Manifolds”, independently completed by Professor LIU Yi of Peking University, won the second prize of the 2023 the State Natural Science Award.

The geometrization program of three-dimensional manifolds, after the brilliant work of renowned geometers Thurston, Perelman, and others, has become the most important research approach in three-dimensional topology today, making low dimensional geometric topology one of the core research fields at the forefront of mathematics. The theory of finite cover construction has undergone significant development in the past decade, resolving several important issues with a history of about thirty years, including the Thurston conjecture. However, some core issues still need to be studied. Building on the work of his predecessors, LIU creatively combined geometrization ideas and emerging structures with more mature classical theories to develop new research methods and tools, thereby solving a series of major problems related to three-dimensional manifolds and surface self-mapping. He fundamentally improved the technical cores of L2 Alexander torsion, Kahn-Markovic construction, and effectively promoted the development at the forefront of the field. Related research papers have been published in top international journals such as Invent. Math., J.Amer. Math. Soc. Among them, his 2020 work published in J. Amer. Math. Soc solved the conjecture about surface self-mapping proposed by Fields Medalist McMullen, leading to LIU being invited to give a 45-minute presentation at the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians.

LIU Yi graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University in 2006 and currently works at the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research. He is a recipient of the National Outstanding Youth Fund and was an invited speaker at the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians. He has also won the “Qiu Shi” Outstanding Young Scholar Award. LIU is also an outstanding young mathematician in the field of geometry and topology, with his primary research areas being three-dimensional topology and hyperbolic geometry.

The State Natural Science Award is one of the most important national science and technology awards in China, given to outstanding scientific and technological workers who have made major scientific discoveries in basic research and applied basic research. Teachers from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University have won the State Natural Science Award multiple times.