Wang Daheng was born in Wu County in Jiangsu Province in Feb.26, 1915. Wang Daheng，who was elected member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955 and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1994, is one of the founders of applied optical science and technology in China.

Wang Daheng graduated from the department of Physics in Tsinghua University in 1940 and went abroad to study Applied Optics in Britain, then got his master's degree. In 1942, he became the assistant researcher of Birmingham Company of Britain. He came back to China in 1948 and had been the professor of Dalian University, curator of institution of equipment, Director of Department of Technology and Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences and so forth.

Together with professors Wang Ganchang, Chen Fangyun and Yang Jiachi, he raised the proposal for the development of high technology in China, which has been regarded as the “863 Project.” He and Prof. Wang Ganchang also jointly initiated the building of the national key device of laser fusion.

He had been the chief engineer of the project of manufacture of large precise equipment for measuring light. He did a lot of work for the plan of the future development of the optical technology of China. He also gave many important suggestions to decision-making of the whole project. He is one of the explorers and founders of China's modern relating optics technology and optics project. Under his leadership, Chinese explored and developed the technology for testing relating optics, laser light techniques, simulation of the Sun and the ground and other national defending optics field.

 

In 1985, he was a leading awardee of a superior prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. In 1994, he was a winner of the Award for Science and Technology Achievements by the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation. In 1999, he was honored as one of 23 national medalist of the advancement of “Nuclear, Jet Propulsion and Space Technologies.”