In 1965 Lee earned a doctorate at UC Berkeley, and in 1986 he became the third Chinese person to receive a Nobel Prize. In 1994 he ended his more than 30 years of work in America and returned to Taiwan to serve as president of the Academia Sinica.
一九六五年，李遠哲取得美國加州大學柏克萊分校的博士學位，一九八六年成為第三位榮獲諾貝爾獎的華人，一九九四年他結束三十多年的旅美生涯，回國擔任中研院院長。