Yuan Tseh Lee is a Taiwanese chemist.  He was the first Taiwanese Nobel Prize laureate, who, along with the Hungarian-Canadian John C. Polanyi and American Dudley R. Herschbachwon the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1986 "for their contributions to the dynamics of chemical elementary processes".Yuan Tseh Lee was born on November 19, 1936 in Hsinchu, Taiwan. His father was a respected artist and his mother taught school. Lee began graduate work at the National Tsinghua University in 1959 and eventually received a Master's degree. His thesis involved the studies of the natural radioisotopes contained in hukutolite. He then stayed on at Tsinghua as a research assistant. Working with Professor C.H. Wong, Lee carried out the x-ray structure determination of tricyclopentadienyl samarium. He received the National Medal Of Science in 1986.