Hou Yifan is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women’s World Chess Champion, and the second-highest rated female player of all time. She made history as the youngest female player ever to qualify for the grandmaster title at age 14 and became the youngest-ever Women's World Chess Champion at 16, winning the title four times (2010, 2011, 2013, and 2016). Ranked as the No. 1 female player as of December 2015, Hou has successfully balanced her chess career with academic pursuits. Despite her trainer's reservations, she enrolled in Peking University in 2012, studying International Relations, and later received a Rhodes Scholarship to pursue a Master of Public Policy at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government in 2018. In 2020, at age 26, she became the youngest full professor at Shenzhen University’s School of Physical Education. In 2023, Hou led her team to win a gold medal at the Asian Games, while continuing her academic career by joining the sports department of Peking University.