Prof Tianshou Zhao, the Distinguished Research Excellence Award 2014 recipient, delivered an insightful keynote on the topic “Innovating Energy Technologies through an Interdisciplinary Approach”. The keynote attracted 150 audiences including academics of other institutions, government representatives, industry members, faculty members and students. 

Prof Zhao pays special attention on one of the most challenging global issues over the decades – energy shortage and climate change. In this regard, his researches mainly focus on the creation of clean energy and storage devices for a sustainable future. In this particular keynote, Prof Zhao provided a glimpse of the future of sustainable energy to his audience, and he also introduced his findings on fuel cell and redox flow battery technologies achieved through an interdisciplinary approach which combines thermos-fluids science and electrochemistry. Besides this particular project, Prof Zhao has also made pioneering contributions in the areas of fuel cells, flow batteries, multi-scale multiphase heat and mass transport with electrochemical reactions, and computational modeling.  The keynote was followed by a tea reception, while all guests congratulated Prof Zhao for his outstanding achievement and had a joyfully warm gathering. 

Other than the Distinguished Research Excellence Award, Prof Zhao’s achievements are being recognized by numerous parties. In recent years, he received two Natural Science Awards (2012 & 2013), the ASME Fellowship Award, the Yangtze River Chair Professorship, just to name a few. Most lately, he was named by Thomas Reuters a Highly Cited Researcher in Engineering and also the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds (2014).

The Research Excellence Awards scheme was launched by the School of Engineering in 2011. The key objective of this prestigious award is to recognize outstanding researchers’ achievements, which connect cutting edge research with the industry and community at large. The awards are classified into two different categories, including the “Distinguished Research Excellence Award” and the “Research Excellence Award”. The former award honors a faculty member with distinguished and remarkable research achievements which significantly impacts the world, and every recipient gives a public lecture with the establishment of the award. Delivering a keynote is indeed an honour itself.