Prof. Gang Chen, HUST eminent alumnus, member of American National Academy of Engineering NAE and MIT tenure professor of Mechanical Engineering, was invited to the 126th Scientific Spirit and Practice lecture series on June 7th. He shared his experience with HUST students by giving a lecture entitled "My Learning and Researching Experience".
Gang Chen received his B.S. 1984 and M.S. 1987 from the Department of Power Engineering of the then Huazhong Institute of Technology. In May 1987 he started to work for the University. In 1989 he was sponsored to study in the University of California Berkeley as a student of Chang-Lin Tien, and got his PhD in 1993. He held positions at Duke University as assistant professor from 1993 to 1997, and associate professor at University of California, Los Angeles from 1997 to 2001. Since then he worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Prof. Chen s lecture started from his study experience. He joked that he was assigned to learn power engineering which was regarded by his father as a specialty for fueling boilers, but he has made great accomplishments in this field. This meant every walk of life could bring out talents if there are industrious minds. Now People show much reverence for his election to NAE, and undoubtedly, this brilliant achievement came from years' of hard work. He formed his character of diligence during his study and work. The eagerness to accomplish something propelled his growing progress, and he experienced a leap forward after he won favor with Chang-Lin Tien, the then Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, when interviewed by Prof. Tien and became Tien s student.
Prof. Chen then elaborated on how to decide on the research interests. He introduced the idea of "to push to extreme , and based on the project undertaken in Berkeley, he stressed the importance of communication and raising questions. He disapproved of engineering students' grinding for studies. In his opinion, success means the combination of dignity, methods and opportunities. In this equation, the three components are indispensable to success. The previous two are easy for Chinese students, while opportunity only knocks once. So to seize the opportunity requires our initiative. It is helpful to grasp the overall situation through open eyes and ears. In addition, he emphasized a mix of theories and experiments. Where appropriate, experiments should be used to validate theories, for the two can complement each other and achieve mutual promotion.
In Prof. Chen s team, many students are from China, among whom, Shen Sheng is a graduate from HUST s School of Energy, and Zeng Lingping, Class of 2006, will become Chen s student. He admitted his research features interdisciplinary development, which is also the emphasis for the domestic universities. Therefore, he will continue to collaborate with domestic universities in interdisciplinary cooperation.
