Graduation Stars are a perfect demonstration of what undergraduate students can achieve in four year’s time studying with Fudan, a world’s first-tier university that helps students get closer to fulfilling their dreams.
According to the academic calendar of Chinese universities, the end of June is usually the time for campuses to see off another year of graduates. It is a time of sorrow as graduates say goodbye to their cohorts with whom they have bonded over the past years, but it is also a time of excitement as the commencement ceremony heralds a new chapter in the life of the new graduates.
But before they officially start off trying to change the world, Fudan will look back at the four years of growth of these students and honor those who have already made stellar performance.
Every year, Fudan announces ten winners of the “Graduation Star” title, the highest honor a Fudan undergraduate can earn. It is presented to the best students who are going to graduate from the university with a bachelor’s degree that year. The winners should demonstrate academic and research excellence as well as valuable qualities including diligence, perseverance, kindness, courage, enterprise, etc.
If you wonder what this year’s Graduate Stars have achieved in the past four years, have a look at their short profiles below.
Tang Xiruo, College of Foreign Languages and Literatures
With straight As at Duke University, US and first-class honors at University of Warwick, UK, all in her time as an exchange student, Tang defies the stereotypical impression of being a nerd with only striking academic performance.
Interested in children’s development, she volunteered in multiple studies led by prominent Fudan professors. She was also responsible for 4 mental health courses at the Primary School affiliated to Fudan University.
Later she turned to vulnerable communities. With her experience as an exchange student in the US, she wrote a paper on the language education in a family of Chinese immigrants in the US and made constructive advice for those families lacking the opportunity to learn Chinese language.
Fulfilling all her potential as an English major, Tang led the Fudan English debate team to compete at various international debate competitions with contestants from prestigious overseas universities.
Wu Yunong, School of Journalism
Wu travels extensively. From western China to Africa, she conducted field investigations to understand local perspectives on China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative. During her time in Africa, she made two documentaries herself on white rhinoceros, an endangered species.
Wu was an intern at Bloomberg and Reuters and a candidate in the final round of Rhodes Scholarships 2019. To gain more experience of working for an international organizations, Wu worked at UN Industrial Development Organization, ASEAN-China Center, etc.
At ASEAN-China Center, she ran the social platforms of the Center and managed the Center’s relations with media entities from ASEAN countries. She was invited to share the findings from her field investigations in the Philippines with Southeast Asian scholars and officials at the China-ASEAN Civil Exchange Forum.
Filip Filipovic, School of International Relations and Public Affairs
Filip was the vice president of the student union at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, and the vice director of the Department of International Affairs at the Fudan University Student Union.
As an international student himself, he was keen to help non-Chinese students settle in the new environment. To help students who were unable to catch up with the rest of class, he would spend the extra time on translating his class notes into English for them.
Through translating documents, writing papers and participated in various symposiums, Filip aims to better understand China’s foreign policies and its relations with the rest of the world.
Filip co-organized a special session participated by youth from around the world on the Belt-and-Road Initiative at Expo Astana 2017 on Future Energy.
Amid the pandemic, he worked for the Serbian Consulate in Shanghai to coordinate medical supplies donated by Chinese people to Serbia.
Xiong Zikai, School of Mathematical Sciences
Xiong switched his major to mathematics halfway in his second semester at Fudan. It was difficult for Xiong at the beginning as he had to catch up all the classes he missed for almost a whole year. In the next two years and a half, he made extra effort on his study and attended 21 courses including seminars, honors class and short-term courses.
He prefers to use mathematical knowledge to solve practical problems. He researched profit management and consumer product portfolio decision using mathematical knowledge. Last October, Xiong made a 25-minute report at the 2019 Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Annual Meeting in Seattle.
A paper of which he was a co-corresponding author titled “Interior-point Methods Strike Back: Solving the Wasserstein Barycenter Problem” was accepted by NeurIPS, the world’s largest conference in AI.
Liu Junlang, Department of Chemistry
Liu is a research enthusiast. Since the summer of his freshman year, he has been a member of the research group led by Zheng Gengfeng, Fudan professor of chemistry.
While working on energy-related research, he was inspired by green plant photosynthesis and proposed a novel approach marking a record-high solar-to-CO photoconversion efficiency. Together with his fellow researchers, Liu published the findings in a paper in Nature Communications titled “Efficient solar-driven electrocatalytic CO2 reduction in a redox-medium-assisted system”. As the co-first-author of the paper and still an undergraduate student, he was invited to give an oral report at 2018 MRS fall meeting.
Liu is also a passionate science popularizer, volunteering for the university’s chemistry festivals and answering chemistry questions during the tutoring sessions at Fudan Center for Student Learning Development.
Zhao Bohan, School of Computer Science
Zhao has a keen interest in computer science, particularly cybersecurity and cyber management. As a core member the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Laboratory of Fudan School of Computer Science, he participated in a national-level research project titled “Scale Testing and Verification For Multi-Service Integrated Software-Defined Network (SDN)” undertaken by the laboratory.
He has by now first-authored 4 publications. And he has quite the experience of working for big companies. He was an intern at Intel Asia-Pacific R&D Ltd. Through working with a research group from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University, Zhao joined Huawei’s adaptive gateway technology project.
Liu Xinbiao, School of Software
Liu actively searched for ways to transfer frontier robotic technologies from lab to production line. He was the president of the student union of Fudan Software School, organizing major student activities such as “Visiting Zhangjiang” and “1024 Festival: Software School Evening Gala”.
He volunteered to teach in disadvantaged areas in Hainan Province, popularized knowledge of phone scams in residential communities and taught the elderly there how to use smart phones. Despite his time devoted to social work and student activities, he studied hard and stayed among the top of the class.
Chen Daci, School of Law
In fall 2019, Chen interned at Asia-Pacific Model E-port Network (APMEN) supervised by the APEC committee on Trade and Investment for five months after selected to take part in an exchange program to study at Peking University in the spring that year.
In fall 2018, she conducted a study on arbitration and mediation of maritime disputes and completed a thesis of over 100,000 characters, visiting Shanghai Maritime Court, China Maritime Arbitration Committee and Beijing Arbitration Committee.
She was never afraid of getting out of her comfort zone. Since October 2017, she was offered the post of being the research assistant at the School of Management to conduct frontier research in marketing. She also directs Observing China (OBCN), a market research service. Partnering with Nelson, Ant Finance, MSC Consulting, slicejobs.com, etc., OBCN has so far designing surveys for market research in 60 Chinese cities.
For her great academic performance, she was awarded the title “Senior Rongchang Scholar” by Rongchang scholarships, a program aiming to cultivate Chinese talents of global governance and increase Chinese representation in international organizations.
Xu Hongbin, Department of Materials Science
As a materials science major, Xu has devoted a lot of time and energy to scientific research. He has participated in projects that led to 13 publications in journals listed in Scientific Citation Index (SCI), including top journals in material science such as Advanced Energy Materials and Applied catalysis B: environmental. He also has two patents derived from his research pending. Even during the pandemic, he has still completed two papers ready for submission.
His research innovation has amazed judges at major competitions including the National Challenge Cup, Shanghai Scientific Innovation Cup and Fudan Fanhai Innovation and Entrepreneurship Cup. The project he participated won the grand prize at the National Challenge Cup.
Sun Lihua, School of Basic Medicine
At the 2016 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) held at Massachusetts of Technology, Sun won the bronze medal with her team member for their project titled “Replicative-deficient Adenovirus Targeting at Cancer Energy Pathways”. She also joined the Bio-Elite project, a top biomedical talent training program of Fudan University and conducted research related to GPCR45.
She participated in a neural stem cell differentiation project at National University of Singapore as an exchange student. She went to the US twice for the Cross-disciplinary Scholars in Science and Technology (CSST) program of University of California in Los Angeles and the International Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (iSURE) program of the University of Notre Dame.
She has actively applied her medical knowledge to public welfare programs, helping organize a summer camp at a school in the impoverished Fushun county of Sichuan province and conducted research on parasites in the local ecosystem.
Editor: Deng Jianguo
