The passion of “Academician Budai” for educating people: after receiving the award, he immediately ran to teach students

On the morning of November 3, 2021, Zhao Dongyuan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor of the Department of Chemistry at Fudan University, accepted the first prize of the National Natural Science Award at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. After the award ceremony, he rushed back to Fudan without stopping, because he had to teach undergraduates at 8 o'clock the next morning. On November 4, a photo of Zhao Dongyuan went viral on WeChat Moments and became a legend in all walks of life. In the photo, he was standing in front of the Yuan Chengying Building of Fudan University with a cloth bag, which contained his first prize certificate. Zhou Guifa, the teacher who took this photo, went to a meeting at ten o'clock in the morning. Unexpectedly, he met Zhao Dongyuan at the door of Yuan Chengying Building, so he recorded this moment. Zhao Dongyuan got the title of "Bag Academician" from this.

In 2022, Zhao Dongyuan was awarded the "Science and Technology Meritorious Service Award" at the Shanghai Science and Technology Awards Conference. As soon as he finished introducing his research at the media conference, he ran away early, and the reason was also because he was in a hurry to teach a chemistry class to undergraduates.

As one of the country's top scientists in the field of functional mesoporous materials, Zhao Dongyuan pioneered a new field of research on mesoporous organic polymers and carbon materials, and opened up a path for the rapid development of Chinese materials science. The most difficult thing is that he successfully "transformed" his original basic research results - a new generation of shell-type nanostructured mesoporous material catalysts - into industrial applications of Sinopec Qilu Petrochemical, turning previously unusable residual oil and heavy oil into usable gasoline and diesel, increasing 1.5 million tons of high-quality oil products each year, equivalent to an increase of tens of billions in output value, which has greatly promoted the development of the country's petrochemical industry.

Although he is well-known for his scientific research, in Zhao Dongyuan's heart, the title of "teacher" is above all else. "Basic research is about creating knowledge, and teaching students is about imparting knowledge. China's economy is developing rapidly and is in great need of outstanding talents. This is an unshirkable historical mission for us university teachers."

Breaking the "dignity of teachers" He is an ambassador to inspire students' enthusiasm for science

Since 2003, Zhao Dongyuan has been teaching the basic professional course "General Chemistry" to freshmen majoring in natural sciences for 20 years without interruption. This is a general course for the whole school, with many concepts and abstract content, but Zhao Dongyuan always makes the course humorous and interesting, and explains the properties of elements in a simple and easy-to-understand way, combining the latest progress in materials science. In class, he also respects every student and encourages them to ask questions. In class, various questions come one after another, and after the course, he will be surrounded by students.

General Chemistry is the first course that Tian Yong, a 2019 undergraduate student from the Department of Chemistry at Fudan University, took after entering university. "This course is well-known among classmates for being compact and fulfilling! Teacher Zhao brought us into the beautiful world of chemical science."

When Tian Yong joined Zhao Dongyuan's research group, he realized how much effort he put into this course. "He would try to set aside the entire afternoon before each class. He would sit in his office to sort out the courseware for the next day. When he encountered difficult problems, he would call the teaching assistants to discuss them together. In order to be on time for class, he could even postpone surgery. Once, he called me over and asked me to choose the best way to explain crystal lattices from a student's perspective!"

Professor Li Wei, a student of Zhao Dongyuan, also started teaching the General Chemistry course at Fudan University a few years ago. He attended the teacher's course for two years. Before the class, Zhao Dongyuan was still worried. "In Professor Zhao's mind, the course is more important than anything else. He was afraid that I would be "booed" by students during my first class because of insufficient preparation. He told me in detail the key and difficult parts of the course and what questions students might ask."

Zhao Dongyuan often said that teachers should also have awe for students. Once a student asked a question that stumped Zhao Dongyuan, he called all the chemistry teachers who taught "General Chemistry" together that night to discuss until they came up with a satisfactory answer, which he then told the students in detail in the next class.

Behind the encouragement of asking questions is Zhao Dongyuan's educational philosophy of breaking the "dignity of teachers". "Chinese people have a tradition of teachers, that is, what teachers say is right, and test questions are standardized. There is no shortage of standard answers in the classroom, but there is a lack of innovative thinking and independent and free thinking space. If we stick to the respect for teachers, there may be no innovation. Innovation needs to be overturned, so I try to cultivate students' ability to ask questions."

Being an "ambassador" who inspires students' enthusiasm for science is Zhao Dongyuan's greatest pleasure. He especially likes taking online classes and giving popular science lectures to middle school students. "A few days ago, I gave a lecture online, specifically talking about the basic theory proposed by the chemist Lavoisier. I didn't expect that there would be 460,000 people participating online. I was thinking, if 2-3 of these 460,000 people fall in love with chemistry and are determined to devote themselves to scientific research, then my goal will be achieved." In order to "spread" more scientific seeds, Zhao Dongyuan has opened programs including "Science Popularization China - Masters Talk on the Frontiers of Science and Technology" for the general public, and has also participated in the recording of popular science TV programs such as CCTV's "Let's Talk" and Dragon TV's "Future China", and edited popular science books such as "One Hundred Thousand Whys (Sixth Edition) · Chemistry Volume".

Thanks to the efforts of Zhao Dongyuan and his colleagues, Fudan University's "General Chemistry" course won the "First Prize of Shanghai Teaching Achievement Award" (2013), the "Second Prize of National Teaching Achievement Award" (2014), and was selected as a national first-class undergraduate course (offline first-class course) in 2023.

Advocate "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" and every student has his or her own shining points

It is a very happy thing to be Zhao Dongyuan's student. "24 hours online" is the students' vivid description of their tutor's teaching. He tells every student in the research group: "If you have any questions, come to me at any time. The door of my office is always open to you."

Zhao Dongyuan advocates a personalized training method of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude. "Every student is different and has his or her own interests and shining points! My job is to inspire them."

Li Wei studied undergraduate at Heilongjiang University. In 2007, he attended a lecture by Zhao Dongyuan during his visit to Heilongjiang University. "It's amazing! The teacher has achieved the level of 'superb' in the controlled synthesis of mesoporous materials." He talked to Zhao with great respect. During the academic exchange, Zhao Dongyuan found that this student had a very quick mind. The next year, he was admitted to Fudan University and studied under Zhao Dongyuan.

In the third year of his master's and doctoral studies, Li Wei had not yet published a decent paper because of unsatisfactory experimental results. Other supervisors would have been impatient, but Zhao Dongyuan trusted Li Wei very much. He brought Li Wei to help him analyze and solve problems and taught him the methods of scientific research.

Li Wei finally "realized" the method of scientific research. In the following two years, he published 9 heavyweight articles, and then Zhao Dongyuan sent him abroad to pursue a postdoctoral degree. Today, the returned Li Wei has become a Yangtze River Scholar and has published many papers in the top chemistry journals "Journal of the American Chemical Society", "Angewandte Chemie" and "Advanced Materials". He proposed a new modular assembly strategy, created a series of structurally controllable mesoporous polymers and carbon materials, and revealed the unique material transport and interfacial reaction laws of mesopores. At the age of 37, he has become a rising star in the field of chemical science in China, and one of Zhao Dongyuan's proudest students.

Professor Fan Jie, who is currently working at the Department of Chemistry at Zhejiang University, is Zhao Dongyuan's first five-year doctoral student. Seeing that Fan Jie's academic foundation is relatively weak and his English conversation skills are relatively weak, but his personality is relatively extroverted, Zhao Dongyuan arranged for him to participate in more exchange activities. When foreign scientists came to the Department of Chemistry for exchanges, he asked Fan Jie to accompany them, and he also sent him abroad many times to participate in academic exchange activities. Fan Jie gradually grew up and achieved a series of results in scientific research.

Gu Dong, a history student who loves chemistry, applied to transfer to the chemistry department, and later chose Zhao Dongyuan as his undergraduate advisor, and began to participate in some research work in the laboratory. Now he is a professor at the Wuhan University Institute for Advanced Studies. Looking back, Gu Dong sincerely thanks Zhao Dongyuan for his training, "Teacher Zhao has helped me move from books to bottles and jars in the world of science, and from the wild imagination in my mind to what is within reach."

The unconventional approach to cultivating talents has also brought Zhao Dongyuan surprises in scientific research. On October 7, 2003, Gu Dong had a sudden idea to assemble polymers into holes first, and then aggregate and grow them, and unexpectedly tested a set of beautiful data. Zhao Dongyuan's entire research team suddenly "came out of the darkness" and adjusted experimental parameters and tested and analyzed them in full swing. In 2005, Zhao Dongyuan published a paper in "German Angewandte Chemie", proposing the new idea of ​​"organic-organic self-assembly" for the first time. So far, this paper has been cited more than 3,000 times, and has attracted more than 1,500 scientific research institutions in more than 60 countries and regions to follow up on research, and more than 50,000 papers have been published using similar research methods.

The team led by Zhao Dongyuan has an unwritten rule that 20%-30% of the prize money he receives from each award is used to fund the development of young scholars. Since becoming a graduate student tutor, he has guided 18 students to obtain master's degrees, 65 students to obtain doctoral degrees, and 23 postdoctoral fellows. Among the graduate students he trained, 3 won the "National Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation", 3 won the "National Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation" nomination award, 10 won the Shanghai Outstanding Graduate Student Achievement (Dissertation), 4 won the title of "Outstanding Postdoctoral Fellow" of Fudan University, and 12 won the Shanghai Outstanding Graduate Student Achievement (Dissertation).

Inheriting "scientific thinking" Innovation is the eternal theme of scientific research

Zhao Dongyuan said that to develop science, we must first develop the scientific spirit. "I am engaged in materials research. Today, we are at the forefront of the world in high-temperature superconducting nanomaterials and anti-Hall effect quantum crystal materials. However, we must also realize that compared with hundreds or thousands of years of scientific research in the West, our basic research started very late, and our understanding of the connotation of "science" is still very shallow. We lack original scientific research results from 0 to 1, which is the pain of science in our country.

Encouraging students to explore uncharted territory, cultivating their scientific logical thinking ability and independent scientific research ideas, and encouraging them to conduct original basic research is another educational concept of Zhao Dongyuan as a scientific research guide.

Zhao Dongyuan has given many special lectures on "My Views on Scientific Research Innovation" to introduce scientific thinking and innovative research, a series of lectures on "Science and Technology Paper Writing" to train scientific expression, and "Talking about Chemistry and Future Energy" to expand cutting-edge knowledge. During the Shanghai epidemic in 2022, he insisted on giving relevant lectures online, with an audience of more than 70,000 people, and the response was extraordinary.

In Zhao Dongyuan's view, a truly great scientific discovery may not only be published in a paper in Science or Nature, but also bring progress to human society. For example, Faraday, who went from an apprentice to a scientist, proposed the theory of electromagnetic induction, which brought mankind into the era of electric lights. This is a great scientific discovery. As for where the paper on electromagnetic induction was published, no one cares. "Faraday said that scientific research is a trilogy: start, end, and write. Real scientific work is based on logic and needs empirical knowledge to support it. Scientists create new knowledge."

Some innovative ideas need scientists to generate them through the collision of ideas in their spare time. Zhao Dongyuan said that in his own laboratory, he rarely puts pressure on members to publish patents and papers. They can talk to me at any time when they have ideas. Original innovation inspiration often bursts out in constant discussions. This kind of leisure conversation is very important for researchers.

At present, Shanghai is accelerating the construction of a science and technology innovation center, focusing on the entire innovation process of "from 0 to 1, from 1 to 10", bringing a "nuclear fusion" effect to urban development. Zhao Dongyuan is also leading the team to conduct new explorations in the field of basic research.

Li Wei said that Professor Zhao is also constantly breaking the boundaries of our thinking. He encourages us to find possible applications of mesoporous materials in various industrial fields and explore new basic research directions.

Li Wei introduced that the team is currently also promoting the expansion of mesoporous materials into the energy storage industry, cosmetics industry, medical beauty industry and integrated circuit industry to help these industries solve practical problems. In the field of petrochemicals where we have been deeply involved before, we are also developing in the direction of integrated refining, not only to help companies produce more high-quality oil products, but also to increase the output of fine chemicals.

Zhao Dongyuan also has some ideas about the development of mesoporous materials in the clothing industry: Mesoporous materials have been used as insulation and heat insulation materials in industry. Can they be applied to clothing in the future? For example, clothes made of nanopores are both light and thin, and have strong warmth retention. The team is currently working on a liquid made of mesoporous polymer materials.