Roots 来路

Self-Improvement Award, Tianjin University

Received Tianjin University's Self-Improvement Award (北洋自强奖) in 2021, the first year of the degree — a small badge at the very start of the walk.

Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Tianjin University

Entered the School of Mathematics at Tianjin University in the 2021 cohort, in an honours mathematics class, reading Mathematics and Applied Mathematics until June 2025 — analysis, advanced algebra, real and complex analysis, mathematical modelling — and qualifying for exemption from the national postgraduate entrance exam. The final stage was completed at the University of Bristol through the 3+1 route. On the plate, Tianjin is the origin: every walker leaves from here.

Rowing for Tianjin University

Rowed for the Tianjin University rowing team from September 2021 to June 2023, taking second place in the mixed 2000 m at the 4th Tianjin Water Sports Games and cutting a personal 500 m time by about fifteen per cent over the two years. A physical rhythm under the mathematics: stroke, recover, repeat.

Darboux's theorem and Hilbert's third problem

Two end-of-term essays for the first-year special-topic courses in analysis and algebra, both dated 24 December 2021: ‘Darboux's theorem’, seven pages on why a derivative cannot jump, and ‘Hilbert's third problem’, fifteen pages on whether any two polyhedra of equal volume can be cut into matching pieces. The first long-form mathematics.

A certified personal trainer, too

Earned the NSCA Certified Personal Trainer credential in the winter of 2022, out of an interest in training and fitness. It is an unexpected line on a mathematician's record — and perhaps why the lunch-optimisation post treats complete nutrition as a hard constraint.

Outstanding Student Cadre

Recognised as an Outstanding Student Cadre of Tianjin University in 2022, for the student-leadership work of the first two years — the thread of service that later reappears in Bristol as a PGR representative.

Guiding a hundred new mathematicians

Led a team of three freshmen class guides supporting more than a hundred incoming mathematics students through August and September 2022 — campus tours, answering questions, and acting as the link between new students and staff. A year later, the same instinct produced the maths guide.

Head of Student Rights, School of Mathematics

Led the Student Rights department of the Tianjin University School of Mathematics student union from September 2022 to June 2023, taking more than forty student issues on accommodation and facilities to resolution and setting up more than twenty conversations between students and the school's administration. It was the first time representing other students — and the role came back, three years later, in Bristol.

The 3+1 route: the first shortcut

The degree's final stage ran through the Tianjin University–University of Bristol 3+1 route: three years at Tianjin — the third spent on exchange in Hong Kong — then the one-year MSc at Bristol. Selection came in November 2022; by September 2024 the move was made. The bachelor's (to June 2025) and the master's (from September 2024) overlap, which is why the plate draws this as a shortcut: a long-range jump that skips a year.

Tianjin University's booth at HKUST

While on exchange, ran an information booth representing Tianjin University at HKUST, telling visiting students in English and Chinese about research, collaboration and exchange opportunities — an ambassador before the title existed.

An exchange year at HKUST

Spent the 2023–24 academic year as an exchange student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, taking partial differential equations, numerical solution of PDEs and applied statistics. It was where the mathematics turned computational — and where a first neural-network research project began.

Physics-informed neural networks for PDEs

A research project at HKUST from November 2023 to May 2024 used physics-informed neural networks in PyTorch to solve partial differential equations — one-dimensional diffusion, a two-dimensional wave equation and Laplace's equation in two and three dimensions — comparing uniform and random sampling of the training points. The 22-page report, ‘Using PINN to solve diffusion, wave and Laplace equations’, is dated 31 May 2024. It is the earliest point on the thread from mathematics to AI.

A first press mention, in Chengdu

During the summer internship programme of 2024, a visit to the Chengdu World Horticultural Expo on 23 July ended up in a local news report that quoted by name. Around it came speeches at the opening and closing ceremonies of the summer programme for university students — a first stage, and a first microphone.

Research intern, JLL Chengdu

A research internship in the Chengdu research department of JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle) in the summer of 2024, through the Sichuan–Hong Kong summer internship programme, joined while on exchange at HKUST: data-driven market research, collecting and cleaning large retail datasets in Python, and turning them into findings for stakeholders. The programme's visits — Guang'an, the Sanxingdui Museum, the panda base — made it a month of Sichuan as well as spreadsheets.

Research intern

MSc Engineering Mathematics, University of Bristol

Moved to Bristol in September 2024 for the MSc in Engineering Mathematics. The modules ran from statistical computing and empirical methods, information theory and coding, and renewable energy to mathematical modelling in biology, medicine and public health, methods of AI, and skills in mathematical research. It finished with a Distinction and a dissertation on first passage — see Chapter 01.

Night shifts as a Student Warden

During the MSc year, worked part-time as a Student Warden in Bristol student accommodation: duty shifts giving residents frontline support and responding to fire alarms under the safety procedures, with fire-warden training completed in December 2024.

What makes a flight late?

In a five-person MSc team project with an industry partner in logistics, led the synthesis of more than fifteen causal-inference papers and applied structural causal models to an aviation dataset of about 29,000 points, isolating the effect of weather on delays while controlling for latitude and season. The team combined the causal analysis with Kolmogorov–Arnold networks.

Geneva: a UN field-exchange programme

A winter study programme in Geneva built around the UN Office at Geneva, 8–17 February 2025 — WFUNA's Youth Training Program at the UN, with workshops on humanitarian affairs, multilateralism, diplomacy and the Sustainable Development Goals. In a thirty-person simulated UN conference, represented Australia and led the drafting of a fifteen-minute script for a vaccine-cooperation conference; the group visited WIPO, the ILO, the FAO, UNODA, CERN and the IFRC.

Three languages, one of them at A1 for now

Mandarin Chinese is native, English is at IELTS 7.0 and French is at A1. In practice the working life is bilingual by default: talks, papers, documentation and websites — this one included — usually ship in English and Chinese at once, and one research paper is about what happens when people type to AI in the space between the two.

BSc thesis: epidemics in heterogeneous spaces

The Tianjin University undergraduate thesis, completed in May 2025 at 117 pages, couples confined lattice random walks with local SIR epidemic dynamics in a reaction–diffusion framework and derives a closed-form basic reproduction number for heterogeneous spaces. It is tested in four indoor settings — an office, a supermarket, a classroom and a metro car — and a spectral decomposition makes each evaluation millisecond-scale, roughly four orders of magnitude faster than Monte Carlo. The random walk was already there before the PhD.

Graduating from Tianjin University

Completed the Tianjin University BSc in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics in June 2025, while already in the final months of the Bristol MSc through the joint route — two degree bars closing within three months of each other.

MSc with Distinction

The MSc in Engineering Mathematics at the University of Bristol was awarded with Distinction in 2025. Two months later the same school became the home of the PhD — the walker stayed in the box, and went deeper.