Vivian Yam

Her awards include the HKU Outstanding Researcher Award (1999–2000), Croucher Foundation Senior Research Fellow (2000–01), Ten Outstanding Young Persons of Hong Kong in 2002, Outstanding Women Professionals and Entrepreneurs Awards (2005), State Natural Science Award (Second Class, 2005), the Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Lectureship & Medal (2005/06), and the Japanese Photochemistry Association Lectureship Award for Asian and Oceanian Photochemist Eikohsha Award, (2006), HKU Distinguished Research Achievement Award (2006/07), Hong Kong Outstanding Women Professionals and Entrepreneurs Award (2008), Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress (2011), the L'OREAL-UNESCO for Women in Science Award (2011), the 13th World Outstanding Chinese Award (2013). and the Royal Society of Chemistry's Ludwig Mond Award (2015). Asteroid 83363 Yamwingwah, discovered by Bill Yeung in 2001, was named in her honor. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 17 May 2011 (M.P.C. 75104).

Yam has been associated particularly with the elements osmium, platinum and ruthenium. She joined the HKU faculty in 2001 where she is the Philip Wong Wilson Wong Professor of Chemistry and Energy. Yam became a Fulbright Scholar in 2007.

Yam was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001, becoming the youngest member. The previous holder of this record was, Che, Yam's earlier mentor. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World in 2006 and a member of the Foreign Associate of National Academy of Sciences in 2012.

In 1990, she married Patrick Shing-Tat Mak (Chinese: 麥成達) whom she met in Che's laboratory, where they conducted research together. They have two daughters.

In 1988, she became a junior faculty member at the Department of Applied Science, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong; at the time, there were no facilities at all for teaching chemistry. She helped with establishing the first chemistry books in the library as well as ordering the first beakers and chemicals. Yam's work took her to Caltech in the late 1980s. After a spell at the University of Rochester in 1990 she went to study at the Imperial College London in 1991 and stayed until 1992. She worked with the Nobel laureate Geoffrey Wilkinson. Her research turned to organometallic synthesis "studying the luminescence of complexes with metal–metal interactions". She worked with tetraethyllead which at the time was not a banned additives for petrol. This work was on the border between organic and inorganic chemicals.

Yam attended an Anglican grammar school. She received her B.Sc in Chemistry (1985) and PhD (1988) degrees at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) where she was on the badminton team, studying under Chi-Ming Che.

Professor Vivian Yam Wing-wah (born 10 February 1963) CSci, CChem, FRSC, is a Hong Kong chemist. The youngest member to be elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (as of 2013), she was a 2011 L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureate "for her work on light-emitting materials and innovative ways of capturing solar energy."