"I can play a more active role to contribute my knowledge and thinking about how a modern university should be."

ON2019-12-25TAG: ShanghaiTech UniversityCATEGORY: Voices

Mi Qixi

Assistant Professor, PI, SPST


My name is Qixi Mi and I’m currently an assistant professor and principal investigator at SPST, ShanghaiTech. My research is about new semiconducting materials, for example those for next-gen solar cells and conversion between light and electricity.

Because this is a new university, so there are less existing rules or conventional framework and I can decide a lot of things. I think it is is new and I can play a more active role in not only being a part of ShanghaiTech faculty member but also to contribute my knowledge and thinking about how a modern university should be, so in some sense I can contribute something to this university rather than just be part of a very established university. Probably I’d be part of a larger lab or research group following an specified direction. But according to my training and what I learned in the US, in order to be a PI and start my independent career, it is actually quite important to start everything by scratch. There is a little cost for this being new, some things go a little slowly or it takes some time to establish our new traditions our organization, but that is part of the process and it’s very important.