Speaker: Xinyue YeVenue: Room A109, Anzhong Building, Zijingang CampusAbstract: Dr. Xinyue Ye is currently the Shelby Distinguished Professor at the University of Alabama. He is the first elected Fellow of the American Association of Geographers from the Early Career category. In 2025, he received the AAG Distinguished Scholarly Achievement Award for his groundbreaking contributions at the intersection of geography, urban planning, and data science (the award is given to only one to two scholars annually), setting the record for the fastest election after receiving his PhD. In the same year, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in recognition of his outstanding contributions to geographic artificial intelligence and urban informatics. He was the only Chinese scholar among the 15 Fellows elected from the Geology Section in that year. Since 2020, he has been consecutively listed in Stanford University's World's Top 2% Scientists in both career-long cumulative impact and yearly academic impact.

Speaker: Hans KosterVenue: Room 426, School of Economics, Zijingang CampusAbstract: Hans Koster is Full Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate in the Department of Spatial Economics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is also a Research Fellow at the Tinbergen Institute and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and an elected board member of the Urban Economics Association. Hans studies how cities work: why people and firms cluster together, what makes housing affordable or not, and whether government interventions in land use and housing actually improve welfare. His research combines large-scale administrative and microdata with advanced econometric techniques.

Speaker: Krzysztof MatyjaszewskiVenue: Lecture Hall 123, Hetong Building 6, Zijingang CampusAbstract: Polymers are ubiquitous in our society, with over 400 million tons of annual production (1 kg per person per week). They are used in every possible aspect of our lives, including construction, transportation, clothing, electronics, and biomedical areas. Without polymers, there would be no computers, no smartphones, no Covid-19 vaccines, and no protective medical gear. Yet, the majority of these polymers are ill-defined and discarded after a singular use. Our main goal has been to prepare well-defined polymers with precisely controlled macromolecular architecture under environmentally benign conditions, using ppm of catalysts, an aqueous environment, and open-air with additional control by light, electrical current, mechanical forces or benign chemicals such as ascorbic acid. We employed a commercially successful radical polymerization process as a main synthetic tool; however, we faced very rapid radical termination and propagation, preventing any polymerization control. Using intermittent deactivation of growing radicals, we tamed uncontrolled radical behavior and extended the life of growing radicals from less than 1 second to several hours or days. The dynamic exchange between active radicals and dormant species is catalyzed by ppm amounts of copper catalyst in atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). It enabled macromolecular engineering and provided access to uniform star, comb, bottlebrush, or ring polymers with controlled chain composition such as block, gradient, or periodic structures. This also provided access to biocongugates by covalently linking synthetic polymers with proteins, nucleic acids, or carbohydrates, as well as attaching polymers to inorganic surfaces. Such well-defined polymers and hybrid materials outperform conventional commercial products; they can self-assemble, self-repair, depolymerize back to monomers and respond to external stimuli. They find applications as advanced materials in the areas of biomedicine, energy, and environment.

Speaker: Ulrich SchriddeVenue: Conference Hall, East 6F, Liangzhu LaboratoryAbstract: Dr. Ulrich Schridde is currently a Senior Editor for the Cell Press journal Neuron and lives and works in Boston, MA, USA. At Neuron, Ulli is part of the editorial team and handles/oversees the review and publication of manuscripts across all areas of neuroscience. Ulli also acts as a neuroscience advisor to other journals in the CP portfolio. From 2004 to 2007 he was a postdoc in the lab of Dr. Hal Blumenfeld at the Dept. of Neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine, USA. He did a 2nd postdoc with Dr. Nikos Logothetis at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics before joining Cell Press in 2012.In this presentation, Dr. Ulrich Schridde offers researchers a behind-the-scenes guide to publishing in one of neuroscience's leading journals. It covers Neuron's scope and editorial standards, submission strategies, and the full editorial process — from initial consideration and peer review to revision, decision, and acceptance. Practical advice on writing papers, crafting cover letters, selecting reviewers, and navigating appeals is complemented by an overview of Cell Press transfer options and the new multi-journal submission model.Please join us for the BBMI Distinguished Lecture Series to hear directly from a Neuron Senior Editor on how to navigate publishing in a top neuroscience journal.

Speaker: Stevan DubljevicVenue: Room 211, College of Control Science and Engineering, Yuquan CampusAbstract: Effective pipeline leak detection and localization are essential for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in hydrocarbon transportation systems. However, the complex spatiotemporal dynamics, limited sensor coverage, and measurement disturbances pose significant challenges. This talk presents advanced estimation and control strategies designed for pipeline networks modeled by infinite-dimensional systems governed by partial differential equations (PDEs). Specifically, a novel moving horizon estimation (MHE) framework is introduced for constrained estimation of leak size and location, using a discrete-time pipeline hydraulic model derived via the structure-preserving Cayley-Tustin discretization. By leveraging coordinate transformation, the estimation problem is decoupled to improve leak localization accuracy. On the other hand, a discrete Luenberger observer is designed for state reconstruction under limited measurements, and support vector machines (SVM) are employed for data-driven leak classification and localization. The MHE framework is further extended by integrating state and parameter estimation with model predictive control (MPC) for set-point tracking in PDEs-governed pipeline network systems. Finally, an industrial application involving a pipeline system in Alberta will be discussed.

Speaker: Dr. Richard ZhangVenue: Room 201, College of Electrical Engineering Building, Yuquan CampusAbstract: Transformers are the backbone of today’s electric power infrastructure and a wide range of electrical equipment. Since the advent of the “electronic transformer” in the late 1960s—pioneered by GE’s William McMurray—research and product development in this area, under terminologies such as solid-state transformer (SST), power electronic transformer, and energy router, have been driven by diverse applications, including railways, naval systems, and renewable energy integration. In recent years, both academic and industrial interest has accelerated significantly, fueled by the rapid growth of applications such as data centers and fast EV charging stations. Consequently, a large body of high-quality research papers, review articles, and tutorials has emerged.This lecture adopts an application-oriented perspective to analyze various SST technology options, including past research on SST by CPES researchers. It examines the trajectory and underlying rationale of key technological advances, while highlighting emerging opportunities. The goal is to help engineers and engineering leaders in industry, taking a techno-economic view, gain insight into past solutions and upcoming promising research directions, so they may be better equipped to position themselves for the future.

Speaker: Professor Tim BurnessVenue: Room 210, Haina Building 2, Zijingang CampusAbstract: Many problems in mathematics involve determining the existence (or otherwise) of an element (or elements) in a set with special properties. In some cases, existence may be established through a direct construction, but this can often turn out to be very difficult. Non-constructive methods are designed to overcome these difficulties, often leading to short and elegant proofs.In this talk, we will introduce the application of probabilistic techniques in group theory, which is a special type of non-constructive method that has been successfully applied to resolve a wide range of challenging problems in recent years. We will discuss the origins of these ideas, which can be traced all the way back to the gambling dens of 18th century Paris, and we will highlight some of the exciting recent breakthroughs at the research frontier. This talk will be accessible to all mathematicians.

Speaker: Professor AGARWAL SumitVenue: Room 530, School of Economics, Zijingang CampusAbstract: Sumit Agarwal is a distinguished professor and thought leader in the fields of finance, economics, and real estate, currently serving as the Low Tuck Kwong Distinguished Professor of Finance, Economics, and Real Estate at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is the Managing Director of the Sustainable and Green Finance Institute, Head of the Department of Real Estate, and President of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research. He has published over 125 academic papers, with his research appearing in prestigious journals such as the AER, QJE, JPE, Econometrica, RES, JF, JFE, and RFS. His work spans a range of topics including household finance, sustainability, financial institutions, and behavioral economics, receiving over 22,000 citations (Google Scholar, May 2026).

Speaker: YAO WentaoVenue: Room A423, School of Management, Zijingang CampusAbstract: We estimate the ecological costs of corporate toxic emissions using managerial pressure to meet earnings benchmarks as an instrument for toxic releases. Linking plant-level emissions to millions of U.S. birdwatching records from 2002–2018, we examine changes in local bird populations around manufacturing facilities owned by U.S. public firms. Bird abundance declines significantly near plants during quarters in which parent firms just meet earnings benchmarks, with effects persisting for up to two years and varying with emission toxicity and species traits. Species richness also declines, though the effects are smaller and less persistent. Combining benchmark-induced changes in toxic releases and bird abundance implies that a 10 percent increase in emissions is associated with a 1.5 percent decline in local bird abundance. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that regulatory and private efforts to curb toxic emissions preserved approximately 8.1 percent of local bird populations between 1998 and 2023.