He Jiang,the first Chinese orator at Harvard commencement addresses, has joined a roll call of the other young people making the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 List. [Photo/provided to China Daily]

He Jiang, who was the first person from China to deliver a Harvard University commencement address, has made the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 List.

"I received this message (about the list) this morning. I'm a little surprised but very happy about that," He told China Daily on Tuesday.

Forbes' 30 Under 30 is a set of lists issued annually by Forbes magazine.

On Tuesday, the magazine released the sixth annual 30 Under 30, featuring 600 young innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders who challenge conventional wisdom and rewrite the rules for the next generation.

The list recognizes 30 game-changers in each of 20 industries. All under 30 years old, the honorees were vetted by a panel of judges in their respective fields.

Previous winners include Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Snapchat's Evan Spiegel, Saturday Night Live's Kate McKinnon, Chance the Rapper and YouTube phenom Michelle Phan.

"These are the people that will run every field for the next 50 years," said Randall Lane, editor of Forbes.

He, a 29-year-old postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was chosen for the healthcare category.

He was nominated by his professors at Harvard.

"I didn't know I was nominated until December," said He.

At Harvard, He used a new technology called single-virus tracking super-resolution imaging (STORM) to understand more about how influenza infects cells, and discovered human genes with strong anti-viral effects.

He is now applying the same techniques to neurons and white blood cells. He hopes the lab research he did could be put to practical use in healthcare.

He grew up in a small village with limited educational opportunities. By studying hard, He graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China - one of China's top universities - with a bachelor's degree in 2009, and was accepted into Harvard's PhD program on a full scholarship the same year.

In May, the biochemistry PhD delivered a speech representing the university's 13 graduate and professional schools at the commencement.

In the speech, He talked about the uneven distribution of science and technology in the world and expressed his passion to get science and medicine into places they aren't reaching, like his own village, where his mother once treated his spider bite with fire.

Seventeen of the 600 winners in 2017 are from China.

One in six on the list are immigrants from 44 countries.

xiaohong@chinadailyusa.com