This summer, for the first time, eight students from Yan Jici Talent Students Program, school of Physical Sciences  have visited the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon to participate in extended research internships. The eight students joined five of the departments research groups to participate in ongoing science on a wide range of topics, from gravitational lensing through superconductivity and metal surface structures to fluid interface wetting and protein dynamics.

"USTC is a leading university in China, and a number of their graduates have joined our department over the years to pursue a Ph.D. with us,” says Prof. Markus Deserno, Head of Graduate Admissions and Associate Department Head. “We are therefore excited to further strengthen our connections with USTC by offering research opportunities to some of their best students. It is wonderful that USTC so generously sponsors this visit.”

The students arrived in Pittsburgh in the second week of July and are staying here until the end of August (some actually longer). While here, they are fully integrated in a research group they chose ahead of time and work together with faculty, postdocs and Ph.D. students on topics of current research interest.

"My work here is concerned with simulations for large biological molecules,” says Changjiang Liu, who joined the biophysical theory group of Deserno. “Those large molecules usually have very complex structures prohibitive for ordinary simulation approaches. So what we are doing now is to try to simplify their representation. This work is very exciting because if we really found a good method, we could largely improve our understanding about how animals, plants, and even human beings function. And that is exactly my interest for scientific research.”

Many of these talented students aim to pursue a Ph.D. in physics in the future. Spending this summer on the forefront of science provides valuable research experience, besides strengthening the resume. But it also illustrates the daily routine of what one actually does most of the time. “You may aspire to unravel the deeper laws of nature,” reminds Deserno, “but on a day-to-day basis you are doing rather mundane things. Searching for a lost minus sign for weeks, debugging a program that stubbornly refuses to compile, or trying to get that obdurate piece of equipment operate stably. But without this laborious daily grind nothing would ever be discovered! This is a lesson one simply cannot learn in classes, which is why actual research experience is so very valuable.”
For many of the visiting students the journey to CMU is not only their first hands-on contact with research, but also their first trip abroad, so the excitement is not limited to science. Experiencing life in America—not just as a tourist, but while actually living here for an extended period of time—is equally fascinating. “This is my first time going aboard, and I feel lucky that Pittsburgh is my first choice,” says Xiaochuan Wu, who works on anomalous thermoelectric transport in magnetochiral states in the group of Prof. Di Xiao. “Pittsburgh is such a peaceful place that it feels easy to calm down, even though it is a big city in Pennsylvania. Besides, it is also very convenient for daily life. There are supermarkets and restaurants everywhere, and a car is not needed in most cases.” If one lives in Pittsburgh for a long time, one might no longer think of these aspects of life, but Xiaochuan’s perspective provides some interesting calibration: USTC is located in Hefei, the capital and largest city of Anhui Province in Eastern China, with a metropolitan center inhabited by more than 3 million people and an overall population of 7.6 million.

"The scientific experience is clearly the most important aspect of this visit,” adds Prof. Xiao, “but if you maybe think about doing a Ph.D. in the US, it is helpful to know the country or even the city you might end up living in. We have made sure that our guests also have many opportunities to explore the non-scientific side of this visit—ranging from joint dinners, going to the movies, and trips to a sports bar to watch the World Cup final.”

 

Story by Markus Deserno,Head of Graduate Admissions and Associate Department Head.

 

Link:http://www.cmu.edu/physics/news/2014/chinese-visiting-students.html