Bai Haoyu, a first-year doctoral candidate at the School of Chemical Engineering and Technology is a slashie in most people’s eyes. The handsome young man seems to have inexhaustible energy and has developed various hobbies in singing, dancing, playing the jazz drum, riding skateboard, swimming and so on. He is a bronze medalist of the Tianjin College Students’ Swimming Contest and a fitness fanatic with arm circumference of over 40 cm. But of all his charm, the most eye-catching is his dedication and achievement as a science geek.
He was the first prize winner in the 16th “Challenge Cup” National College Students’ Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Contest, marking the first time in ten years for Tianjin University to win this honor. Of all ten articles he published as the lead author with Impact Factors (IF) totaling 126, three were included in SCI (Science Citation Index). Meanwhile, he once received the honorary title of “Tianjin Outstanding Student” and won the National Scholarship.
This is Bai Haoyu.
Scientific Research—Challenging Explorations Under Stress
When he was an undergraduate, Bai Haoyu majored in Molecular Science and Engineering jointly organized by Tianjin University and Nankai University. It was a double-degree program that requires students to learn chemistry at NKU and chemical engineering at TJU.
“In four years, we completed the core courses of two majors and countless elective courses in the training plan. After all, our credits required for graduation are dozens more than most majors,” Bai Haoyu recalled.
Among such a tight schedule as he finished his sophomore and junior courses all at once in his second year at college, Bai managed to do experiments in weekends. “I didn’t expect at that time that my weekends in my undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral periods would be spent in the laboratory from then on.”
In the same year, Bai Haoyu participated in the College Students’ Innovative Entrepreneurial Training Plan Program at TJU and the “100 Projects” of Creative Research for Undergraduates of NKU and conducted two experiments at the same time. He studied on biochemistry and cultured bacteria and virus every day.
“The experiments were time-consuming, highly repetitive and hard to produce new findings,” said Bai, “But it provided me a new insight into scientific research. I realized that scientific research will not always deliver new discoveries and add freshness to my daily life as expected. Progress can only be made through numerous attempts and self-reflection on failure.” This enlightenment helped Bai to persevere in his research and eventually finish the projects.
“Challenge Cup” Contest—A test of Personal Capability
Bai Haoyu’s hometown is located on the Loess Plateau in Shanxi Province and constantly plagued by water supply disruption. That makes Bai ponder a lot on affordable access to freshwater. At present, China’s per capita possession of fresh water is 2300 cubic meters, only 1/4 of the world average, making China one of the countries with least water resources per person.
While taking part in the College Students’ Innovative Entrepreneurial Training Plan Program, Bai also joined the bionic interface laboratory led by Dr. Cao Moyuan, associate professor of the School of Chemical Engineering and Technology. After learning that his research topic was on bionic fog collection, Bai felt delighted to find certain solution to water scarcity. Since then, he embarked on the journey of scientific research.
With unremitting efforts, Bai Haoyu leveraged bionic knowledge, took into consideration the ecological structure of cactus in arid areas, and found a gravity-independent process of efficient fog capture. It was the first time in the world to transport liquid against gravity in the field of fog collection, greatly promoting the reliability of the fog collector. As the research became more mature in his senior year, Bai decided to sign up for the 16th “Challenge Cup” National College Students’ Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Contest. “It’s not only a precious opportunity for self training and test of my scientific research ability, but also an efficient way to introduce the bionic interface laboratory, our School and Tianjin University.”
After winning the top prizes of the “Challenge Cup” Contest at both the school level and the municipality level, Bai led the team in his bid for national prize. Special prize winners from all provinces and cities across the country made national contest a difficult one. Bai spared no effort in preparation. “I played multiple roles and together with my team members, we practiced presentation day and night, revised the slides and application forms, and designed posters and introduction videos for our project .”
The way teachers helped him prepare the presentation speech impressed the young man most. “They advised me to replace colloquial expressions in my speech with professional words and adjust my facial expressions and tones according to the speech content.”
Bai still remembered vividly how he practised the speech again and again. “I recorded my speech, listened to the audio repeatedly, and thought hard about the tone and expression I should use to better present the content,” Bai said, joking that even in his dreams, he was practicing. Fortunately, Bai Haoyu's efforts paid off and his team won the first prize of the National “Challenge Cup” Contest, the first time in a decade for the University to gain the honor.
Well-rounded Development—How a Slashie Came into Being
Apart from academic study, Bai Haoyu is keen on experiencing something new in his daily life. He doesn’t conform to the usual stereotype of researchers who spend all their time on work. With most of his time occupied by courses and researches, he still manages to spare some time in developing his hobbies. “Personally, I’d like to try anything interesting.”
In his freshman year, Bai was selected by his coach to join the school team for his excellent performance in swimming class. From then on, he had to practice for several hours once or twice a week. After training all morning, he usually hung out with teammates for lunch. Speaking of the good old days, Bai said, “We got along with each other very well in our swimming team and had a great time together.”
For Bai Haoyu, training was exhausting but interesting. When he was too tired to continue, he would have a break and start practicing again. In the Tianjin College Students’ Swimming Contest, he won the third place in the 100m butterfly and the fourth place in the 4x100m medley relay. “As an amateur, I enjoyed those happy days.”
Bai Haoyu tried to live his spare time to the fullest and make his life more colorful.
In his sophomore year, he often went to rehearse songs with his friend’s band at night after a day’s work on courses and experiments.
In his junior year, he needed to burn the midnight oil conducting experiments. However, he would take time to practice dancing on Saturday.
While working toward a master's degree, as he went deeper into the research subject, Bai was required to work on multiple projects at the same time and deal with countless tasks which occupied almost all his time. Still, he found time to work out at gyms occasionally as before.
Bai Haoyu felt lucky to undertake researches on his favorite topics, meet his current supervisor and be a member of the bionic interface laboratory. He hopes to deliver more practical and meaningful research findings in the future. “It would be great if I could make a little difference to the world.”
By Li Xiang
Editor: Eva Yin
