At the invitation of Prof. LI Weiping, Dean of the School of Information Science and Technology (SIST), Prof. Larry Leifer and Prof. Mark Cutkosky from Stanford University paid a two-day-visit to USTC on Sept. 7th and Sept. 8th.

In the morning of Sept. 7th, President HOU Jianguo, Vice President CHEN Chusheng, and Prof. LI Weiping held a meeting with the two professors to welcome their visit to USTC and hope their visit will bring fruitful collaboration between USTC and Stanford. After the meeting, the two professors visited the Museum of USTC History and toured the East Campus.

In the afternoon, Prof. Leifer and Prof. Cutkosky gave two magnificent presentations in West Campus, which were entitled “Dancing with Ambiguity” and “Bioinspiration as a tool for enhancing engineering design creativity” respectively. The two wonderful presentations fascinated a roomful audience and brought round after round of warm applause.

In the evening, the two professors were invited to attend the series activity “Face to Face with Masters” in East Campus. They introduced the content of the famous Stanford Design Course in detail and then carried out interactive dialogues with students through interview and Q&A. The activity deepened the students’ understanding on the Course as well as student training mode in Stanford. The whole activity ended in a friendly and harmonious atmosphere.

In the morning of Sept. 8th, Prof. Leifer and Prof. Cutkosky attended a discussion meeting held with SIST faculty. IEEE Fellow, Dr. LI Shipeng from Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), which has a joint talent-fostering project with SIST, also attended the meeting. Through the discussion, the two professors obtained a clearer image about USTC and SIST, and the faculty also gained a better understanding on the school system and teaching methods at Stanford.

In the afternoon, the two professors, accompanied by Dr. JIANG Li who is a USTC alumnus and obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University, visited several laboratories of SIST and the School of Computer Science and Technology. They showed great interest in the students’ creative practice ability and research achievements.

Stanford has established collaborations with several Universities all over the world on its well-known Design Course. The visit of the two professors is expected to result in collaboration on the Course with USTC, for the first time, with a university in China.