Chinese research talent to conduct advanced material research in Germany

Dr. Zhuang Xiaoying, a young researcher from Shanghai, is one of this year's winners of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award, among Germany's most valuable research prizes, it was announced Wednesday.

Zhuang was among six international research talents to be conferred the award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany.

She told Xinhua that the funding will give her a big boost in carrying forward her research in advanced materials.

"Young research talents are highly motivated, especially those who have their own creative ideas and have made certain internationally recognized achievements. Special mechanisms are much needed to keep the innovative momentum at an early stage in their careers," said Zhuang.

The 32-year-old associate professor at Tongji University in Shanghai, said the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award is like the green channel at customs which would give her quick access to fulfilling her projects.

The award for innovative projects is funded by the Federal Research Ministry of Germany, which grants each winner up to 1.65 million euros (1.84 million U.S. dollars). With the funding, winners can spend up to five years conducting research at German universities and research institutions, establishing their own working groups at their host institutes.

Zhuang will use the funding at Institute of Continuum Mechanics, Leibniz University Hannover, to do research on polymer-matrix composites (PMCs).

PMCs are widely used in many fields, including electronic devices and semi-conductors. Lighter, stronger and better performance PMCs are crucial for the aerospace, automotive and electronics industries of the future.

So far, however, their behavior and damage tolerance as well as coupled performance, both thermo and electro-mechanical, have not been studied sufficiently.

Zhuang said she will lead a team to design, optimize and verify new materials based on computer simulations and experiments. She wants to gain a new understanding of composite materials and facilitate their use for industrial purposes. To this end, she is focusing particularly on the use of nano-materials.

Commenting on scientific research in China, Zhuang said China has many outstanding researchers in various fields, with an increasing number of them doing research abroad. Meanwhile, there are also many Chinese researchers educated abroad willing to go the opposite direction to realize their projects at their home country.

Though China has achieved an amazing number of patents, Zhuang said, it is the quality that counts. In this sense, China still has a long way to go to be an innovation power, she added. Endit