To understand the current TDLI doctoral student progress and needs and improve the TDLI talent cultivation system, at the noon of 7th September, Zhao Xin, the Party Secretary of the TDLI Directly Affiliated Party Branch met with current TDLI doctoral students in Conference Room 202 and had a candid face-to-face talk. The meeting was moderated by Jiang Yanyuan.

To kick off the meeting, students introduced themselves to gain better understanding of each other. Jiang Yanyuan later briefed the participants on the construction progress with a video clip of latest updates from the construction site of TDLI Laboratory Building and elaborated on the background and updates of the construction work and provide students with deeper insights into the construction. Students fully acknowledged the Tsung-Dao Lee’s patriotism and the high attention of the Party and the central government in China to the construction of TDLI.

Students were engaged in the welcoming atmosphere and discussed issues such as student cultivation, degree conferment, syllabus arrangement, faculty capability-building, and future life facilities. Zhao attentively listened to the views and comments from students and gave one-on-one answers.

Zhao concluded the meeting with his sincere hope that regular meetings should be held to engage students to voice out their authentic thoughts and attend to their concerns. It is hoped that students can establish their sense of belonging and pride in TDLI. As part of TDLI, students are not just pursuers of studies, but also messengers of knowledge. Zhao aspired all students to take the ownership of their own studies in SJTU, their research in TDLI, and contributions in China with the Party and China in their minds, as proposed by Tsung-Dao Lee, remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind, and make their contributions to build TDLI into a world-leading academic institution in physics, astronomy, and cross-disciplinary fields.