On the morning of June 27, Professor Peter Lennie, provost of University of Rochester, and Professor Xi-Cheng Zhang, director of Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, visited XIOPM. Director Zhao Wei rolled out the welcome mat for them in the institute affairs meeting room of Zutong Building and Wang Yishan, Yao Baoli, Li Jinfang, Man Peng, Yang Jianfeng and Fan Xuewu attended the talks.
University of Rochester, founded in 1850, is situated in Rochester, New York, United States. There are 7 scholars are academicians with National Academy of Science, United States and 18 are academicians with American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the university. 8 professors from the faculty and alumni have won Nobel Prize and 9 scholars have won The Pulitzer Prize in Literature. 6 schools are set in University of Rochester and 175 degree courses (including bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and Ph.D. degree) are offered, among which majors including music, history, politics, psychology, mathematics, biomedical engineering and optics are renowned.
Founded in 1929, Institute of Optics, University of Rochester is the first optics research institution established in United States, which makes it the birthplace of American optics. In the history of American optics education development, Institute of Optics, University of Rochester has played a key role and can be named the Godfather in the optical field. It is one of the three optical research centers in America.
During the talks, researcher Yao Baoli and professor Peter Lennie at first separately introduced the basic conditions of XIOPM and University of Rochester, including development history, achievements in scientific research and postgraduate education. Secondly, they exchanged opinions upon the future of combined postgraduates training and multi-field cooperation. Based on the mutual trust and consensus on postgraduate training, director Zhao Wei and provost Peter Lennie, on behalf of the two parties, signed the agreement upon combined training of postgraduate’s double-degree programme, which was the first step of the cooperation between XIOPM and University of Rochester.
Later, Peter Lennie and his partner visited the State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Focuslight Technologies Co., Ltd. and System Engineering Department, which gave them an overall knowledge of the achievements obtained by XIOPM in three fields including fundamental research, industry-university-research cooperation and optical engineering. They were impressed with XIOPM’s pleasant environment and good condition for scientific research.
In the afternoon, under the chairmanship of secretary Ma Caiwen, professor Xi-Cheng Zhang, the tenth director of Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, in the department of postgraduates, gave an introduction to basic condition of the Institute of Optics and profiles of Optics Letters, OSA which is under his general editorship. Also, he and more than 40 postgraduates and teacher representatives warmly discussed postgraduate’s education, cooperation in scientific research, talents training modes and other issues. The discussion lasted for 3 hours, which helped teachers and students know more about Institute of Optics, University of Rochester and provided a sound basis for specific implementation of combined postgraduate training.
Training talents jointly with education institutions is an important step of XIOPM to carry out “first-mover” and “science-education combination programme” and a bold exploration of training innovative talents. Earlier, XIOPM established Zutong Elite Class together with Xidian University and achieved good results. Cooperation with University of Rochester is the first time that XIOPM trains postgraduates together with foreign education institutions, which opens up a new approach for XIOPM’s training innovative talents.
