Congratulations!LeCosPA Graduate Now a Distinguished Professor in Yangzhou University

圖片 1Yen Chin Ong, a previous member of LeCosPA who obtained his PhD from NTU’s Graduate Institute of Astrophysics in 2014, has recently obtained a faculty position as a Distinguished Professor at the College of Physical Science and Technology of Yangzhou University. He will be joining the newly established Center for Gravitation and Cosmology at the university.Yen Chin’s primary interest is in black hole physics, especially the properties of various types of black holes in both general relativity and modified gravity, at both classical and quantum levels. He maintains a wide interest in related subjects, and also works on other aspects of gravity and high energy physics, such as cosmology, holography, and the feasibility of modified gravity theories.Yen Chin came to Taiwan from Malaysia in 2010, after obtaining his B.Sc. (Hons) and M.Sc. degrees from the Department of Mathematics of National University of Singapore, to study with Prof. Pisin Chen, the director of LeCosPA. Over his 4 year period as a PhD candidate, Yen Chin published a total of 10 papers and 2 proceeding articles. Most of his papers were published in high-impact journals, such as JHEP, JCAP, PLB, PRD and CQG. In addition, he has received various awards, including:

[1] Springer Theses Award, which published an elaborated version of his PhD thesis “Evolution of Black Holes in Anti-de Sitter Spacetime and the Firewall Controversy” as a monograph.

[2] Dean’s Award for Excellent Ph.D. Thesis from the College of Science of NTU.

[3] Excellence Teaching Award for Teaching Assistant of NTU.

[4] The 2nd Prize in the Natural Sciences Category of the first Philosophy Laurel Prize for NTU students.

After graduation, Yen Chin went to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, as a research fellow in the prestigious Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA), a position that lasted for 2 years, from September 2014 to August 2016, during which he continued to be very productive and published a total of 13 papers and 2 proceeding articles. These include a Phys. Rev. Lett paper on “Naked Black Hole Firewall” [arXiv:1511.05695 [hep-th]], and a comprehensive review on “Black Hole Remnants and the Information Loss Paradox” [arXiv:1412.8366 [gr-qc]], which was published in Physics Reports. He also co-organized an international conference on Hawking Radiation in August 2015, during which Prof. Stephen Hawking announced his idea about resolving the information paradox via the “soft hair” of black holes, related to the supertranslation symmetry.

During May to June of 2016, Yen Chin received a Riemann Fellowship to visit the Riemann Center for Geometry and Physics in Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany. He then came to China in September 2016 as a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and again in the short 9 months has written 6 papers, 5 of which have been formally published.

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Yangzhou University

Yangzhou University grew out of a merger in 1992 of six local colleges, but its history can be traced back to 1902 when Mr. Zhang Jian, a famous industrialist and educator of modern China, established the Tongzhou Normal School. The school later on led to the Jiangsu Agricultural College and the Yangzhou Teachers’ College, 2 of the 6 institutes that were eventually merged to form Yangzhou University.

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East City Gate of Yangzhou

Currently Yangzhou University has multiple campuses. The College of Physical Science and Technology is located close to the Slender West Lake, a scenic tourist attraction.

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Slender West Lake

The newly established Center for Gravitation and Cosmology is part of the BRICS initiative. The current research areas of the center include general relativity, black hole physics, and theoretical cosmology. New directions will soon be established in the field of computation and simulation, experimental astrophysics, and cosmology. The center aims to foster collaborations with main institutes in China and partner institutions around the world.