Five Duke Kunshan scholars have received research grants from the prestigious National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) to support cutting-edge research into fields such as cancer prognosis, fast-charging solid-state batteries, conservation biology, and climate risk.
The five DKU faculty members receiving NSFC funding awards are:
- Dr. Zhenyu Yang, Research Assistant Professor of Medical Physics;
- Dr. Xinrong Lin, Associate Professor of Chemistry;
- Dr. Binbin Li, Associate Professor of Environmental Science;
- Dr. Pengzhan Guo, Assistant Professor of Data Science;
- Dr. Jingbo Cui, Associate Professor of Applied Economics.
Dr. Zhenyu Yang has been awarded the funding to quantify and assess uncertainties in the automatic segmentation of abdominal images for radiotherapy purposes. His work is at the forefront of applying artificial intelligence in medical imaging, developing and leveraging advanced deep learning models for applications such as lung cancer prognosis prediction, lung function prediction, and brain tumor segmentation.
Dr. Xinrong Lin will use the funding to advance her research on the design and synthesis of ionic polymer-inorganic solid-state hybrid electrolytes, contributing to the development of fast-charging solid-state batteries. Her research group has developed next-generation energy storage systems including all-solid-state batteries/supercapacitors, and has been developing data automation and high-throughput methods in battery materials discovery, analysis and production.
Dr. Binbin Li focuses on conservation biology. Her research explores the synergy between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development under climate change. Her research covers conservation planning to promote synergetic solutions to climate change mitigation and human health, the One Health framework, endangered and endemic species conservation in China, such as giant pandas, sustainable infrastructure building in the Belt and Road Initiative, and bird collisions in urban environment. She promotes using innovative technology, market tools, citizen science, and policies to solve conservation problems and assist sustainable local community development.
Dr. Pengzhan Guo has been funded to conduct theoretical and algorithmic research on centralized parallel stochastic gradient descent. His research covers methodology and applications in machine learning and data mining. He is especially interested in parallel computing, human resource management and mobile computing.
Dr. Jingbo Cui studies climate risk’s economic and environmental impacts on Chinese microenterprises. His research centers on environmental economics, innovation, and international trade. His recent projects include an economic analysis of climate change, the welfare impacts of biofuel policies, and the effects of environmental policies on environmental innovation.
