“科学大师需要高尚的素养，本人必须意志纯洁，以发展科学为己任，无有其他功利杂念”
“A great scientist is a person of noble personality and pure motives, who takes his responsibility to develop science, not for the pursuit of personal interests.”

　　陕西华县人，中共党员。地质学家、古生物学家、教育家，中国古脊椎动物学开拓者和奠基人。1927年发表《中国北部之啮齿动物化石》（德文）专著，标志着古脊椎动物学在中国的诞生。1927年获德国慕尼黑大学博士学位。研究领域几乎涵盖了从鱼到人的全部古脊椎动物学，重点是对中国古哺乳动物和古爬行动物及中-新生代地层的研究。1948年当选中央研究院院士，1955年当选中科院学部委员（院士）。曾当选北美古脊椎动物学会荣誉会员、苏联莫斯科自然博物协会国外会员、英国林奈学会会员等。曾担任新生代研究室主任及古脊椎所首任所长。

Dr. Young Chung-chien was born in Huaxian, Shaanxi Province, and was a CPC member. He is a famous geologist, paleontologist, and educator in China, as well as the founder and guiding spirit of Chinese vertebrate paleontology. In 1927, his monograph titled Fossile Nagetiere aus Nord-China was published, establishing the discipline of vertebrate paleontology in China. Young obtained his Ph.D. from Munich University in Germany in 1927. His broad research extended across almost all fields of vertebrate paleontology from fish to man, with an emphasis on paleomammalogy, paleoherpetology, and the study of Mesozoic-Cenozoic strata in China. Young was elected as a member of Academia Sinica in 1948, and as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955. He also was elected as an honorary member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, a foreign member of the Society of the Moscow Natural History Museum, and a member of the Linnean Society of London. He served as director of both the Cenozoic Research Laboratory and the IVPP.