Sam Bader of Argonne National Lab presents awards to young winners at the Dongrun-Yau Science Award. [Photo provided to China Daily]

For Chen Zihong, winning a silver medal at the Dongrun-Yau Science Award in 2015 was a special experience. Chen, a native of Shanghai, developed an interest in mathematics as a child. He taught himself high school mathematics when he was in junior middle school, and finished college mathematics courses when he was in high school.

In 2016, he became one of the few Chinese students to be accepted by Harvard University.

Chen believes his passion for mathematics and his research made him to stand out and win a place in his dream college.

Chen won the medal for a research paper on summation of infinite series, a pure mathematics topic.

The Dongrun-Yau Science Award aims to nurture scientific interest and encourage innovation among middle school students.

The award, which features competitions to encourage students to do research, also strives to discover young science talent and help them prepare for future challenges.

The Dongrun Foundation, a private charitable foundation where Professor Shing-Tung Yau serves as the honorary president, joined the program as a sponsor in 2015.

The program, which is eight years old, instituted awards for chemistry and biology this year, and now cover four areas including mathematics and physics.

Over the years, more than 20 awardees from the program have been recommended and been accepted into the world's top universities such as Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Stanford.

Speaking about his journey, Chen says: "Professor Yau gave me lots of advice on my research. He also wrote a recommendation letter to Harvard for me, which was very helpful."

The program also encourages academic exchanges between the candidates and the scholars who are the judges, says Chen.