Originated from Taiwan, Ting’s father, Kuan-Hai Ting, was a professor of engineering, and his mother, Tsun-Ying Wang, was a professor of psychology.[ii] Ting’s family returned to Taiwan a few months after his birth, and he was raised there until his reached the age of 20.[iii] Ting received his elementary and secondary education in China. He was talented in mathematics, science, and history.[iv] First admitted as an engineering student at the University of Michigan in 1956, Ting soon reclaimed his passion for physics and changed his major. He later graduated from the program where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics and mathematics, and Ph.D. in physics from the University in 1959 and 1962, respectively. Upon graduating from the University of Michigan, Ting went to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) as a Ford Foundation Fellow where he studied with Giuseppe Cocconi at the Proton Synchrotron.[v] Ting later returned to the U.S. and he taught briefly at Columbia University and later joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967 and received his professorship in 1969.[vi] Ting remains his teaching and research at the MIT since then.[vii]

His biggest achievement is the discovery of a new subatomic particle, the J/psi particle. The discovery of this particle, which is thought to be composed of a charmed quark and its antiquark, led to a significant expansion and refinement of the quark model.[viii] He was rewarded with a shared Nobel Prize in 1976 for such discovery.[ix] In addition to the Nobel Prize, Ting has also been awarded the Ernest Orlando Award from the U.S. government at the same year, and the DeGasperi Award in Science from the Italian government in 1988.[x] Ting is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (US) and the American Physical Society, the Italian Physical Society and the European Physical Society. He has also been elected as a foreign member in Academia Sinica, the Pakistan Academy of Science and the Academy of Science of the USSR (now Russian Academy of Science.[xi]