以表彰他开辟整体微分几何学的成就，以及他对这个数学范畴一直以来的领导。整体微分几何学的精妙发展占著当代数学的核心，与拓朴学、代数学和分析学，简而言之，与过去六十年数学的所有主要范畴都有密切关连。
Shiing-Shen Chern is the foremost geometer of our time. His mathematical work, centering on geometry and spanning almost seven decades, has shaped large areas of modern mathematics. More than any other mathematician he defined the subject of global differential geometry, one of the central areas in contemporary mathematics. The depth and originality of his mathematical insight is seen in the many basic concepts of modern mathematics to which his name is attached: Chern classes, the Chern-Weil map, the Chern connection, the Bott-Chern forms, Chern-Moser invariants, and the Chern-Simons invariants.
Chern’s talent became apparent early. He completed his undergraduate work at Nankai University and his M.Sc degree work at Tsinghua University. In the 1930s he was sent to Europe, where he studied with Wilhelm Blaschke in Hamburg and Elie Cartan in Paris. Guided by their influence he wrote, in effect, two theses: one on web geometry and one on the differential invariants of a third-order ordinary differential equation. Both works were published and remain of interest today.
陈省身 (Shiing-Shen Chern)（1911-2004）在中国浙江省出生，1930年南开大学毕业，1934年清华大学研究院毕业，其后赴德国汉堡大学深造数学，先后任教中国昆明西南联合大学、美国芝加哥大学和加州大学柏克莱分校。其后陈教授创立南开大学数学研究所，并出任所长，1992年成为该所名誉所长。
陈教授曾获多个荣誉及奖项，包括於1961年被选为美国国家科学院院士，1975年获美国国家科学奖，1984年获以色列政府颁发Wolf数学奖，2002年获俄国科学院颁发Lobachevsky奖及2004年获颁发第一届邵逸夫数学科学奖。陈教授亦曾任2002年在北京举行之国际数学会议之名誉会长。
