Dr. Chang Xingmao, a class ’19 doctoral graduate of the group, was invited to attend the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation annual meeting held in Berlin, Germany on June 22 and 23.

Chang is now doing post-doctoral research as a Humboldt research fellow at the University of Ulm.

On June 22, Free University of Berlin president Gunter M. Ziegler and Humboldt Foundation president Hans-Christian Pape spoke at the opening ceremony attended about 600 researchers from throughout the world. Prof. Emmanuelle Charpentier, the 2020 Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry, shared her research in genetic engineering and encouraged young scientists. On June 23, the Humboldt research fellows visited Schloss Bellevue, where they were received by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Chang also attended the lecture about Machine Learning.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for Nature Research and Travel was originally established in Berlin in honor of Alexander von Humboldt in 1860. Today, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation promotes academic cooperation, international understanding, scientific progress and development between excellent scientists and scholars from abroad and from Germany. The Foundation promotes international understanding, scientific progress and development, aiming at the lifelong personal growth of the Humboldtians rather than focusing on research results.

Chang said that he was able to meet many researchers from different disciplines at the meeting, including almost all fields of science and technology, and some postdocs in economics and linguistics. He gained a lot of insights from talking to them, getting to know their understandings of research and ways of thinking, which was an opportunity he had for the first time. When some of the Chemists who are also from China heard I was from Shaanxi Normal University, their first response was academician Fang Yu. He felt so delighted and proud being a student of Prof. Fang. He now felt the intention and earnestness of Prof. Fang, recalling him urging them repeatedly to go overseas to communicate with people from different backgrounds --- networking with these people in social occasions is beneficial in the future career development.