On the afternoon of March 16, the appointment ceremony for Professor Zhongdong Wang from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Manchester as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Tsinghua University was held in Conference Room 102, Building 3-West, Department of Electrical Engineering. The ceremony was chaired by Sun Kai, Deputy Dean of the Department of Electrical Engineering, and attended by over twenty faculty members from the University of Manchester, as well as from the Graduate School, Department of Electrical Engineering, Department of Astronomy, Department of Chemistry, Department of Physics, and Shenzhen International Graduate School of Tsinghua University.

At the ceremony

At the start of the ceremony, Sun Kai introduced Professor Wang’s major career experience, academic achievements, and her contributions to promoting Sino-UK academic exchanges and talent cultivation.

Subsequently, Kang Chongqing, Dean of the Department of Electrical Engineering, presented the Distinguished Visiting Professor certificate of Tsinghua University to Professor Zhongdong Wang. Kang Chongqing expressed sincere gratitude to Professor Wang for her long-standing support of the development and international exchanges of Tsinghua University’s electrical engineering discipline, particularly her active promotion of the Tsinghua-Manchester Joint PhD Programme. He also expressed hope that Professor Wang’s appointment as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Tsinghua University would further advance collaboration between the two institutions in talent cultivation and scientific research in electrical engineering and related interdisciplinary frontiers.

Kang Chongqing presents the Distinguished Visiting Professor certificate to Professor Zhongdong Wang

In her acceptance speech, Professor Wang stated that as an alumna of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University, she has always felt deep gratitude to her alma mater and home department. She has long wished to give back to Tsinghua through various forms of collaboration, and especially appreciated the continued support and trust from the department. She expressed her commitment to deepening collaboration in talent cultivation, scientific research, and academic exchanges between the two universities, building on the Manchester-Tsinghua Joint PhD Programme, and driving both institutions to make greater contributions to the global power and energy sector.

Biography of the Guest

Professor Zhongdong Wang is a renowned scholar in the field of international electrical engineering. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University. She is currently a professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Manchester and serves as Director of the Manchester-Tsinghua Joint PhD Programme. She has previously held the positions of Vice-President of the University of Exeter and Director of the Smart Grid Centre there. She has made significant contributions to power transformers, insulation systems and materials, high-voltage engineering, and power system safety and reliability. Her research outcomes have twice been selected as impact case studies in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF), achieving notable economic benefits. She has led the establishment of a research alliance covering the entire transformer industry chain, collaborating with 23 companies on industry-academia-research projects. She has successfully supervised over 50 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, published 149 journal papers, and serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of IET Electrical Materials and Applications, demonstrating substantial international academic influence. Professor Zhongdong Wang was elected IEEE Fellow and IET Fellow in 2020, and an International Fellow of the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering (CSEE) in 2022.