On February 18th, the 60th anniversary celebration and the 2023 Academic Annual Conference of the Chinese Society for Agricultural Machinery (CSAM) were grandly held in Kunming. During the conference, the Inaugural Fellow Award Ceremony of the CSAM took place, with 11 individuals elected as the first Fellows, including Academician Ren Luquan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician Luo Xiwen, Academician Zhu Youyong, Academician Chen Xuegeng, Academician Zhao Chunjiang from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Researcher Yuan Shouqi, the Director of the National Research Center of Pumps at Jiangsu University.

The Fellow title is the highest academic honor of the CSAM, commending individuals who have made creative achievements, achieved breakthrough results in in agricultural machinery and related fields, and provided significant contributions to the development of Chinese agricultural mechanization cause or to the promotion of agricultural engineering discipline and the reform of the CSAM.

Yuan Shouqi, as a researcher and head of the National Key Discipline of Fluid Machinery and Engineering at Jiangsu University, has long been engaged in scientific research on irrigation machinery and water-saving equipment. He has successfully tackled technical challenges such as high-efficiency submersible pumps for agriculture, contributing to national projects and winning numerous awards, including two National Science and Technology Progress Awards of the second class, two National Teaching Achievement Awards of the second class, and five first-class for Science and Technology Progress Awards at the provincial and ministerial levels. Yuan Shouqi holds 155 authorized national invention patents, authored or co-authored 396 academic papers as the first or corresponding author, published 16 books, and contributed to 17 national and industry standards. He has played a prominent role in creating the National Research Center of Pumps, the National Key Discipline of Fluid Machinery and Engineering, and the Provincial and Ministerial Co-construction Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Agricultural Equipment and Technology. Yuan Shouqi has received numerous honors, including the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Award for Scientific and Technological Innovation, the Contribution Award for the Development of Chinese Agricultural Machinery, the National Outstanding Science and Technology Worker, and the "National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Supervisor." He is a recipient of the National Distinguished Youth Fund, a specially appointed expert by the government, a leading talent in the National Ten Thousand Talents Program, and was awarded the "Outstanding Contribution Medal for the 40th Anniversary of the Reform and Opening Up of China's Agricultural Machinery Industry" in 2018. In 2019, he was recognized as one of the "Outstanding Figures in the 60th Anniversary of the Development of China's Agricultural Machinery."