The 2017 SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession is awarded to YUAN Yaxiang for his extraordinary achievements in developments in developing and promoting applied mathematics in general and optimization in particular in China. 

YUAN Yaxiang is professor in the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science of the Chinese academy of Sciences (CAS) and affiliated with its State Key Laboratory of Scientific and Engineering Computing (LESC). He is currently President of the Chinese Mathematical Society and Vice-President of the China Association of Science and Technology. He was an ICIAM (1999) and ICM (2014) INVITED SPEAKER. He is one of the youngest Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2011). He is a corresponding member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (2014) and a fellow of The World Academy (TWAS) (2015). He is a Fellow of both SIAM (2011) and AMS (2012). He was instrumental in bringing ICIAM to Beijing in 2015. In 2017 he became President-Elect of ICIAM. 

The SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession, established in 1985, is awarded to an applied mathematician who has made distinguished contributions to the furtherance of applied mathematics on the national or international level. SIAM helps build cooperation between mathematics and the worlds of science and technology to solve real-world problems through publications, conferences, and communities like chapters, sections and activity groups.