Several professors from Duke Kunshan University have been hired as adjunct professors and doctoral supervisors at Wuhan University (WHU), bringing more opportunities for collaboration between the universities.
Kwang Leong Choy, Yin Fangfang, Huang Kaizhu, Zhang Junjie and Yue Jianbo will help to develop academic collaboration and joint talent cultivation in science, engineering and economics.
The latest round of appointments reflects the high levels of cooperation between DKU and WHU in global talent training, cross-border scientific research and senior management exchange. Previous adjunct and supervisor appointees were Scott MacEachern, Lijing Yan and Ming Li.
Duke Kunshan and Wuhan — which partnered with Duke University and Kunshan city to establish DKU as a Sino-U.S. joint-venture institution in 2013 — continue to increase investment and collaboration in areas such as faculty recruitment and doctoral joint training.
Together the universities established the “Wuhan University Postdoctoral Mobile Station and DKU Innovation Base”, which provides opportunities for Ph.D. students at WHU to study or take up internships at DKU. They also run a dual mentor system in which WHU doctoral supervisors and DKU cooperative tutors form expert guidance groups for Ph.D. students.
The new appointments are:
Dr. Kwang Leong Choy
Adjunct Professor and Doctoral Supervisor in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences at Wuhan University
Professor of Materials Science and Acting Co-Director of the Environmental Research Center (ERC) at Duke Kunshan University
Choy has a D.Phil. in materials science from the University of Oxford and a D.Sc. in materials from the University of Nottingham. Before joining Duke Kunshan, she was the founding director of the Institute for Materials Discovery and professor for materials discovery at University College London (UCL).
She was also the course director of the postgraduate taught programme (MSc) in advanced materials science at UCL. She was awarded Fellow of The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2007 and 2010 respectively.
Choy’s research focuses on developing high-performance nanostructured materials for various applications such as solar cells, energy storage, optoelectronics, environment, engineering, healthcare and biomedical fields.
Her pioneering research on innovative, eco-friendly and cost effective non-vacuum Chemical Vapour Deposition platform technology has led to patents, technology translation and exploitation by industrial companies as well as recognition awards, including the Kroll Medal & Prize (2020) and the Grunfeld Memorial Award and Medal (1999) by The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IoM3).
Dr. Fang-Fang Yin
Adjunct Professor and Doctoral Supervisor in the School of Physics and Technology at Wuhan University
Professor of Medical Physics and Director of the Medical Physics Graduate Program at Duke Kunshan University
Yin received his Ph.D. in medical physics from the University of Chicago, M.Sc. in physics from Bowling Green State University and B.Sc. in physics from Zhejiang University.
He is the Gustavo S. Montana Distinguished Professor and director of radiation physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Duke University and a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) and of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
Yin’s research interests include stereotactic radiosurgery, stereotactic body radiation therapy, treatment planning optimization, knowledge guided radiation therapy, intensity-modulated radiation therapy, image-guided radiation therapy, oncological imaging and informatics, and quality improvement and assurance.
Dr. Kaizhu Huang
Adjunct Professor and Doctoral Supervisor in the School of Computer Science at Wuhan University
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the Data Science Research Center at Duke Kunshan University
Huang obtained his Ph.D. from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), M.Sc. from the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and B.Sc. from Xi’an Jiaotong University. Before joining DKU, he was a full professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) and associate dean of research in the School of Advanced Technology, XJTLU.
Huang works on machine learning, neural information processing and pattern recognition. He founded the Suzhou Municipal Key Laboratory of Cognitive Computation and Applied Technology. He has worked at the Fujitsu Research Centre, CUHK, University of Bristol, National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition and Chinese Academy of Sciences.
He was the 2011 recipient of the Asia Pacific Neural Network Society Young Researcher Award and has received awards for best paper or book on seven occasions. Huang serves as associated editor or advisory board member for a number of international journals and book series. He has been invited as keynote speaker to more than 30 international conferences or workshops.
Dr. Junjie Zhang
Adjunct Professor and Doctoral Supervisor in the Economics and Management School of Wuhan University
Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, Director of Initiative for Sustainable Investment, and Professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University
Zhang obtained his Ph.D. from Duke University. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tsinghua University, and a bachelor’s degree from Renmin University of China. Prior to joining Duke Kunshan University, he was an associate professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He has also served as a visiting professor at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua.
The founding director of Duke Kunshan’s Environmental Research Center and International Master of Environmental Policy Program, his recent research focuses on empirical issues in energy transition, climate change and green finance.
He has received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, China National Natural Science Foundation, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, Energy Foundation, World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
Dr. Jianbo Yue
Adjunct Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at College of Life sciences, Wuhan University
Professor of Biology at Duke Kunshan University
Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Science at City University of Hong Kong
Yue graduated from Sichuan University with a B.Sc. degree in biochemistry, Peking University with an M.Sc. in genetics and Pennsylvania State University with a Ph.D. in pharmacology. After undertaking postdoctoral training at Stanford University, he moved to the University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong to start his independent academic career.
Yue’s research focuses on cell signaling related to autophagy, endosomal trafficking, metastasis, anticancer immunity, Ca2+ and reactive oxygen species (ROS). His research group established a high-content drug screening platform, and identified and/or synthesized many potent and specific modulators of autophagy or/and endosomal trafficking.
His group also established both cell and animal models to evaluate the ability of these compounds to modulate viral infection, tumor metastasis and anti-cancer immunity. Yue founded two biotech startup companies, focusing on developing novel anti-metastatic or antiviral drugs.
