Event Highlights
Do you find it difficult to communicate science to
investors and the general public? How do you explain
the technical knowledge to laymen?
This is a very hard thing to learn. From my experience,
there are two ways of doing that. First, present the
message by showing a visual image to the general
public. For instance, you can show a medical photo to
someone who is disabled and tell him/her that you can
change that.
Second, you can tell a true story that non-science
people can understand. One story to share is about a
22-year old woman who had liver transplant. She got
infected in the hospital because her immune system was
compromised (i.e. she is on medication to suppress the
immune system to prevent transplant rejection). Her
situation was very critical and no medicine could help at
that time. Our research team sought permission from
the Food and Drug Administration in the US to
prescribe the newly developed medicine which had not
been approved yet. The medicine finally saved her life.
Aside from this story, I got an interesting experience
while attending the dinner after a meeting in New York.
A woman grabbed and squeezed me tightly. That
woman said my research saved her life. Although huge
financial investment is required in doing the research,
the humanity impact of such investment is
immeasurable too. Life is priceless!
As you are so devoted to your research, could you tell
us how you manage your time and maintain a healthy
balance between work and life?
My wife’s tremendous support and my early marriage
gave me the stability to devote myself to research. I
was married at the age of 21 while I was an
undergraduate. Shortly thereafter we had 2 daughters
while I was in graduate school. I promised my wife that
I would always devote Sunday to the family and that I
would always be at the dinner table for the family when
I am in town. This work out well for us.
You are very successful in both your research and your
business. Is there anything that you would like to
achieve further in the future?
I want to have more discoveries related to the projects
at HKUST/IAS. I believe that this work can make a big
and transformative change to medicine and help society
enormously.
I think another important thing for all of us is to develop
a sense of wisdom and a self-development that you
never stop working on. I always want to feel that I am
learning and absorbing knowledge. I am very much
interested in helping other people to become successful
and find themselves, not in the format of lectures but in
the format of being involved in their lives.
Do you have any comments or suggestions for IAS so
that we can improve further?
I would like to see more opportunities to have all the
IAS people brought together, from time to time, to
brainstorm and share experiences. I think a great
advantage of the IAS is the cross-disciplinary nature and
composition of its members. I would love to hear talks
in physics, economics, engineering, literature—and stay
for a week or two to enjoy and participate. It would also
give us a better sense of community within the IAS.
IAS
PAUL
IAS
PAUL
IAS
PAUL
IAS
PAUL
IAS has been organizing topical
research programs to promote the
creation and development of clusters
of research activities and new
initiatives at HKUST. Three programs
and one workshop have just been
held at the IAS building in January
2014, attracting a total of over 220
participants across continents:
Led by Prof Penger Tong, Chair Professor of Physics, Prof
Ping Sheng and Prof Xiaoping Wang, IAS Senior Fellows,
and their organizing committee involving also CUHK, HKU
and HKBU, this program brings together researchers from
all over the world who are currently working in the area of
soft condensed matter physics and engineering, including
world leading scientists, young scientists, postdoctoral
fellows and postgraduate students, to present their most
exciting work in the frontiers of soft matter research and to
have stimulating discussions about the recent development
and future directions in the field. The 3-week-long program
includes a series of tutorial lectures, an international
conference, and a student-led workshop, of which each of
them last for a week, attracting over 140 participants.
IAS Topical
Research
Programs in
J A N U A R Y
Organized by IAS Visiting Professor Shou-Wu Zhang
(Princeton), IAS Senior Fellow Prof Jianshu Li, IAS Fellow Prof
Xuhua He, and Prof Christopher Skinner (Princeton), this
program aims to gather world-class experts and future
leaders in special cycles and p-adic L-functions working on
several precise topics
• Special cycles on Shimura varieties
• p-adic L-functions
• p-adic analogous of Gan-Gross-Prasad conjectures
• Iwasawa theory
The program includes a 3-day mini-conference, seminars
and introductory lectures over three weeks. With a specific
focus, the program was joined by over 30 participants from
Canada, China, Switzerland and US.
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IAS Chatroom
MAY 2014
MAY 2014
