Three FoSE academic staff have been selected to attend 2022 China-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium

17 January 2022

Three academic staff members from the Faculty of Science and Engineering—Professor Guang Zhu, Professor Jun He and Dr Tengwen Long—have been selected by the Chinese Academy of Engineering to attend the 2022 China-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, to be held July 18-20 in Chengdu, China.


Together with a total of 57 early-career but the most promising engineers under the age of 45 from China and the United States, they will meet for an intensive two-and-half-day symposium to present their research in their specific fields and to discuss developments in cutting edge engineering technology.

China-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (CAFOE) is co-organised by the National Academy of Engineering and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The event aims to facilitate international and cross-disciplinary research collaboration, promote the transfer of new techniques and approaches across a wide range of engineering fields, and forge a trans-pacific network of world-class engineers.

After competing with hundreds of young scholars and engineers from prestigious universities in China such as Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, Xiamen University as well as national research institutes and high-tech companies, Professor Jun He, Dr Tengwen Long and Professor Guang Zhu were successfully selected, meeting the three proposed themes of the symposium with "water sustainability", "food safety based on big data and genomics" and "additive and subtractive manufacturing", respectively.

Professor Guang Zhu is the youngest Chair Professor in the UNNC. He is an expert in advanced material and received his PhD degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Materials Science and Technology. He has published 50 first-authored and correspondence-authored research papers on internationally prestigious journals, and has filed six US patents and 25 Chinese patents. In this symposium, he will highlight his research achievements in the field of 3D printing – 3D printing manufacturing system for digital production. This project intends to greatly improve the molding efficiency and material properties of 3D printing, so as to make it a universal manufacturing method that can truly promote the digital upgrading of the manufacturing industry.

Dr. Tengwen Long is an Assistant Professor of Geographical Sciences. His research focuses on reconstructing the long trajectory of human-environment interactions, which is built upon a wide spectrum of traditional disciplines such as Earth science, bioscience, and historical social sciences. His publications were highlighted in top academic journals such as Nature Plants and Science Advances. Before joining UNNC, Dr Long worked as a PhD researcher at Trinity College, the University of Dublin, and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin and German Archaeological Institute. For the symposium, he will present his recent study into the history of global major crops in a changing environment using innovative approaches. In this study, Dr Long closely integrated sediment-based analysis, radiocarbon dating techniques, geographic information system, and statistical modelling, and successfully reconstructed the long and complex history of Asian rice, millets, and wheat in East Asia, in addition to its possible linkage with the global climate changes.

Professor Jun He specialises in environmental chemistry and pollution control. He has undertaken over 20 research projects funded by a variety of research bodies, including National Natural Science Foundation, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Science and Technology and industrial partners. He received his PhD in Environmental Chemistry from the National University of Singapore. During his study and work abroad, he participated in various research projects funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Public Affairs Agency of Singapore, the National University of Singapore, the British Council and NASA. At this symposium, he will present functional nanofluidic control projects for water treatment and resource recovery, and discuss the application of microfluidic technology in the removal of organic pollutants, toxic metals, inorganic ions and resource recovery with Chinese and American experts.