Yao Tandong tells Mike about realizing his long-held dream: working of the Tibetan Plateau, now as director of the Institute for Tibetan Plateau (ITP) Research (and much else besides!). For Tandong, it all began in 1978 when he was initially exposed to Tibetan glaciology. It cannot have been an easy path. Tandong’s parents were minimally educated, and he was among the first cohort of Chinese students to obtain a western-style MS and PhD. He then spent a decade working in France and the US, forging long-running relationships with some of the best-known scientists in the ice coring community.

Tandong recounts the reformation of Chinese science institutions: the purging of staff and institutes, dealing with systemic nepotism, entrenched benefits system. The  ITP arose from the ashes, with funding of about $35 million and now another $250 million for Tibetan Plateau and Third Pole research. The scope is simply astonishing, and yet another indicator of China’s rise to global prominence in big science.