“Congratulations on your successful defense!” On March 20, Shichao Tian, a PhD student from the Environmental Science and New Energy Technology Research Center of Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (TBSI), completed his online defense. He was the first doctoral student to pass the "cloud defense” of TBSI.

TBSI holding its first online defense

Although the meeting was held online, it strictly abided by the process and requirements of offline defense meetings. The Defense Committee consisted of 6 faculty members including Chairman and Tsinghua SIGS Associate Dean Prof. Jiane Zuo, TBSI Co-Associate Director Prof. Wai Kin (Victor) Chan, Tsinghua SIGS Prof. Yuntao Guan, RCEES Prof. Xu Zhao, SUSTech Prof. Zhongying Wang and Tian’s tutor Prof. Xihui Zhang. 

The title of Shichao Tian’s dissertation is “Research on the Performance and Mechanism of Electrode Materials used for Novel Capacitive Deionization’, and Tian gave the oral defense in English. The Defense Committee thought highly of Tian’s work. Prof. Wai Kin (Victor) Chan said Tian performed well during the defense, and his thesis and scientific research were fruitful. After online discussion and voting, members all agreed that the dissertation met the requirements and Tian was recommended for the award of a PhD degree of engineering. Tian is TBSI’s tenth PhD graduate, and has spent one year at UC Berkeley as a visiting student.

Based on previous experiences of "cloud meetings" and "cloud interviews", the TBSI teaching office has made great efforts to ensure that students graduate on time. TBSI plans to graduate 69 students by June 2020.

Written by Feihui Yu 

Edited by Karen Lee