Personal Introduction
Researcher of the Zhejiang University - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute (ZJUI).
Laureate of "Excellent Homeroom Teacher of Zhejiang University in the academic year of 2020-2021".
He is an educator who nourishes students in silence, a researcher who upholds the spirit of elucubration, and an inheritor of President Coching Chu 's spirit.
He has been working at ZJUI since October 2017, engaged in teaching and research work in the direction of electrical engineering, with research interests in power electronics. Up to now, he has secured 4 national foundation projects/subjects, several industry-university-research cooperation projects, published 73 SCI/EI papers, and has authorized 24 China national invention patents. Besides, he is the first prize winner of Scientific and Technological Progress Award of China Construction Machinery Association, and the outstanding winner of Science and Technology Awards of China Power Supply Society. At the beginning of 2022, the university enterprise joint research center " ZJU-ZINSIGHT Research & Development Center for SiC Application Technologies" led by him was established in International Campus, Zhejiang University.
An educator who nourishes students in silence: patience and sincerity know no bounds
Assist Prof. LI Chushan is the homeroom teacher of ’22 Electrical Engineering, which is also the first class he led as a homeroom teacher. Four years passed in a flash, and the 28 students in the class also changed from being muddled and immature to being outstanding, all of whom are successfully admitted by the graduate school. In addition to the endeavor of the students, Assist Prof. LI Chushan's non-stop running pace is also engraved behind the success.
Rather than being a homeroom teacher, Assist Prof. LI Chushan is more like a kind and knowledgeable "senior" to his students. Although Assist Prof. LI Chushan has to undertake a lot of undergraduate and graduate courses and carry out his own research tasks every year, from the first day he became the homeroom teacher, he did not spare time and began to study and analyze the personalities and commonalities of his students and gave them targeted guidance step by step and section by section. When he shared his experience as a homeroom teacher, he said, "In the freshman year, I hope to help students understand their majors more systematically and comprehensively, learn to think independently, and also encourage them to bravely pursue self-development." By organizing students to visit enterprises, participate in internship practices, and try scientific research training, Assist Prof. LI Chushan tries to create more opportunities for students to get hands-on experience and does his best to promote students to lay a solid foundation for and strengthen their understanding of the major. In order to strive for more and better platforms, he is also actively explore the cooperation with industry leading enterprises to build student practice bases. Under his active facilitation, ZJUI and Eaton (China) Investment Co., Ltd. jointly set up a provincial off-campus practice education base for university students, and cooperated with several companies, such as ZINSIGHT Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Hemai, to set up several off-campus practice bases.
▲ Assist Prof. LI Chushan guides students to visit the practice education base
Entering the sophomore year, many students got confused about the rich subdivision development direction in ZJUI, Assist Prof. LI Chushan again took on the role of " strategist ", carefully sorting out the various development directions in the field of electrical engineering and providing course selection advices for the students. By the junior and senior year, he was even more devoted to helping students, pooling resources, giving talks and guidance, writing letters of recommendation, drawing up customized further study plans for students...... During the journey of self-realization, innovation and development, the students are fortunate to have Assist Prof. LI Chushan witnessing, assisting and accompanying them. Thanks to his efforts, all the students in his class (10 in total) who have the qualification of exemption have been successfully admitted by graduate schools, and 89% of the students who have furthered their studies abroad have received offers from top schools such as Carnegie Mellon University and Yale University.
LIU Zhuping, who has carried out research practice in Assist Prof. LI Chushan's lab, feels that Assist Prof. LI Chushan is like a lighthouse, "I have the impression that Prof. Li has always been a good teacher who is enthusiastic, warm and dedicated to his work. As an instructor, he would patiently answer my questions at the end of class; as a lab supervisor, he would carefully develop research directions and plans with me and discuss with me when I encountered difficulties in projects; as a homeroom teacher, he often talked with me about the future and ideals, clearing the fog of the future and lighting the way for me to go forward."
▲ Assist Prof.LI Chushan gives advice on course selection for students
In addition to keeping abreast of students' thoughts and advising them, Assist Prof. LI Chushan is also the "counselor" for parents. After establishing connection and communication with parents through WeChat, many parents are used to listening to Li's advice when their children are at a critical stage of growth or facing important choices. "homeroom teacher is a brand-new work experience for me, and I just try my best to help my students develop better with the attitude of being responsible for each student. Thanks very much for the parents' support and tolerance of my work. Through the communication with students and parents, I understand more about the students' life and psychological state, and my personal communication skills have been further improved, I have gained a lot."
▲ Assist Prof. LI Chushan leads the class to go out for investigation and research
▲ ECE110 Course
He teaches with heart and soul, and his course ECE 385 Digital Systems Laboratory has been recognized as a provincial offline first-class course; he patiently educates students and has been honored as "Excellent homeroom Teacher of Zhejiang University in 2020-2021 academic year" for his practical and meticulous work. Whether he is a "instructor", "senior", "strategist", "counselor" or "homeroom teacher", Assist Prof. LI Chushan is fully committed to each role.
A researcher who upholds the spirit of elucubration: Devoting himself to seeking the truth without question
Talking about why he chose to study and engage in the study of electrical engineering, Assist Prof. LI Chushan frankly said that at first, he chose electrical engineering simply because it was a particularly "fashionable" major at that time, and the strength of electrical engineering at Zhejiang University was among the top in the country. But in the next 8 years’ in-depth study, he gradually fell in love with this major. He said, "The core goal of our profession is to realize the conversion of electrical energy. We transform the crude, difficult-to-use 'raw electrical energy' 'junk electrical energy' into the fine, useful electrical energy that we need in almost all areas of industrial production and daily life." Electrical engineers often play the role of unsung heroes, the public is difficult to realize their existence, but they are everywhere, which makes him feel very meaningful. "Especially at the moment when our country has set up the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, all aspects like energy saving, emission reduction, and efficient use of electricity, have been inseparable from power electronics."
▲ Prototype of the "underwater high-voltage DC power supply" project
The road of scientific research is not always smooth, sometimes also full of thorns. Assist Prof. LI Chushan also encountered a research project that was "extremely burning". It was an "underwater high-voltage DC power supply" project, which aimed to develop a stable and reliable power supply for various instruments and equipment operating hundreds of meters and hundreds of kilometers underwater. This device on the one hand needs to withstand more than ten kilovolts of high voltage, on the other hand needs to withstand decades of high water pressure in the sea floor and harsh operating environment, so the research difficulty should not be underestimated. "This project made me really appreciate that engineering practice is not the same as academic research and made me feel the sense of crisis for the first time. Our first prototype was found to have a serious engineering problem during the start-up test, which was not considered in the previous theoretical analysis and resulted in the prototype not even being able to start up properly. For this engineering problem, which would hardly be discussed in the literature, our whole team thought of countless kinds of unimaginable solutions, and tackled the problem continuously, finally overcoming it after two months. The moment when the prototype was successfully started, the excitement and joy in my heart was indescribable. I think this is perhaps the charm of this applied discipline of power electronics."
▲ Assist Prof. LI Chushan led the first ZJUI students to complete the scientific research practice project
As Assist Prof. LI Chushan said, the process of constantly seeking and climbing to the peak is what makes scientific research so fascinating. Each scientific research achievement may go through a long process, and we must be calm and rigorous. Only when the research encounters a bottleneck can the importance of rational thinking and calm planning be highlighted.
The inheritor of President Coching Chu 's spirit: Seeking truth regardless of interests
Assist Prof. LI Chushan studied in Zhejiang University for eight years and has been a member of Zhejiang University for almost 20 years. Yesterday, under the inspiration of the spirit of "seeking truth" of the old president Coching Chu, he entered the door of power electronics discipline and contributed to strengthening the strive to make key core technological breakthrough. Today, he has internalized Chu's spirit in his mind and externalized it in the conduct and has influenced a new generation of students with his actions and practices.
▲Assist Prof. LI Chushan's doctoral study at Zhejiang University
"President Coching Chu is not only an active advocator of the spirit of 'seeking truth', but also a role model of practicing the spirit throughout his life. The spirit of seeking truth that he put forward and practiced has become a valuable spiritual treasure of ZJU people, which has been passed on from generation to generation. I feel that people of ZJU have a simple temperament, that is, seeking truth. My classmates, colleagues, and friends around me are especially 'serious' in doing things, and are down-to-earth in everything at hand, and will tirelessly pursue the 'truth' in academics, just like what president Coching Chu mentioned-'the spirit of distinguishing right from wrong regardless of interests'. But on the other hand, we all have a unique spirit, we are all brave to pioneer, and are good at developing new models, enlightening new thinking, using new theories and methods to come out of the shortcut to success, and this is just like what president Coching Chu mentioned- 'the habit of deep deliberation and refusing to follow blindly'. These are my understandings of president Coching Chu's spirit. I also want to pass on this spiritual wealth that has benefited me for life, and I think this is also my unshirkable duty and responsibility as a person of ZJU."
