Professor Wei has a doctorate degree in Electronic Engineering from Aachen Technical University, Germany. After graduating from Nanjing Institute of Technology in 1965, she was the first woman in People’s Republic of China (PRC) to obtain the doctorate degree in Electronic Engineering.
She has published over 300 scientific papers and achieved numerous awards in the field of Science. Because of her contribution in the bioelectronics field in PRC, she was appointed as Academician of CAE which was among the first group to receive the appointment back then, and she also received honorary degrees from nine universities from US, UK, Japan and Canada.
She was the President of Southeast University between 1984 and 1993 and Vice Minister in the Ministry of Education, PRC between 1993 and2002. During her services, she contributed to the reform of higher education and distance learning in China. Since 2001, Wei started a new interdisciplinary research – Neuroeducation and Neural Information Engineering. She also promoted “Learning by Doing”, which is an inquiry–based approach to science education, and she is dedicated to advance child development and education in China.
She received numerous awards with her contribution on science and education in China. In 2004, she won the Special Contribution Award issued by the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, and was named “60 Women Contributing to The 60 Years of UNESCO”. Based on her contribution to “Learning by Doing” in 2006, she was awarded the international PuRkwa prize for innovative practices in science education. She was the winner of the first grade prize for teaching achievements in the reform of national elementary education in 2010.