Chow, 28, joined the Chinese university earlier this year through its "100 Young Professors" program, a talent recruitment initiative aimed at attracting outstanding young scholars from around the world.

Becoming a principal investigator means Chow now leads his own laboratory, sets his own research direction, applies for funding independently and recruits his own students. Most physicists do not reach that level until their mid-to-late 30s, usually after spending years in postdoctoral roles working under senior researchers, according to Malaysia’s The Rakyat Post.

He cited personal ties to China, noting that his grandfather was of Chinese descent and his wife is Chinese. "I really like Hangzhou’s living environment [and] the scenery around West Lake," the South China Morning Post quoted him as saying.

Before moving to China, Chow worked at NUS, ranked eighth globally in the 2026 QS World University Rankings. In 2022, during his PhD studies, he became the youngest recipient of the university’s Best Graduate Researcher Award.

Physicist Stephen Lin Er Chow. Photo courtesy of Chow's LinkedIn

After completing his doctorate at age 26, he was immediately offered a position as a research fellow. Last year, he published his breakthrough findings in the journal Nature, marking the first top-tier publication for NUS’s Quantum Materials Design Laboratory since its establishment two decades ago.

Born in Ipoh, the capital of Perak state in Malaysia, Chow showed strong talent in mathematics and science from an early age. He began his undergraduate studies at NUS in 2016, pursuing dual degrees in physics and materials science, and graduated in 2020 with highest distinction honors in both science and engineering. He also won a Physics Olympian medal, awarded to top-performing students in major international competitions.

After graduation, he joined physicist Ariando’s research group at the university’s Quantum Materials Design Laboratory, which focuses on advanced quantum materials and superconductors. His work centered on superconductors, materials that can carry electricity without losing energy, though usually only at extremely low temperatures.

For decades, scientists mainly studied copper- and iron-based superconductors. Chow wanted to move beyond that. "At that time, copper-based and iron-based materials had already been researched for more than 20 years, and scientists had a thorough understanding of them," he told China Science Daily last year. "I wanted to make further physical advancements."

At the 2023 meeting of the American Physical Society, he introduced a theory showing that nickel-based materials could also achieve high-temperature superconductivity, allowing electricity to flow with almost no resistance.

He later proved the theory through experiments, handling nearly every stage himself, from designing the material to testing how it conducted electricity. By the end of 2023, he had created a new copper-free superconducting oxide that worked at around 40 Kelvin, or minus 233 degrees Celsius, under normal air pressure.

The discovery drew attention because most known high-temperature superconductors rely on copper. Nearly 40 years after copper-oxide superconductors won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics, his work showed this property could exist beyond copper-based materials.

In the second half of 2025, he served as a visiting scholar at Zhejiang University and gave several academic presentations in Hong Kong and mainland China before joining the university full time this year.