Zheng Chunmiao, President of School of Environmental Science and Engineering, accepted the school serial of special report recently, the whole passage of the special reports is as following:

The development of discipline is the priority for school development. We recently carried out the series of special interview to each newly-appointed dean and it has been launched as a series to satisfy the readers. The objective in this issue of interview was Professor Zheng Chunmiao, President of Environmental Science and Engineering College, sharing his innovation and work idea in the  aspects of College building, research and teaching reform and transformation of producing, learning and research.

2015 government work report points out: this year, we will succeed in the battle for energy conservation and emission reduction and environmental governance and carry out the plan for the atmosphere, water pollution prevention and control. Actively develop recycling economy, build energy-saving and environmental protection industry into new-emerging pillar industry.

Shenzhen the First Session of Sixth People’s Congress meeting ended on June 3. Mayor Xu Qin disclosed at the press conference, until 2020, our city would invest 80 billion to be used for management of water environment, and the overall program of water management and quality improvement will further improve the city’s pipe network facilities, sewage treatment facilities, dredging watercourse and so on.

Shenzhen is one of China’s seven major cities suffering with severe water shortage, water shortage and water pollution severely restrict the sustainable development of Shenzhen. Water management and quality-improvement is a hot topic of concern to the people of Shenzhen over the years. SUSTC aims to build into an international, high-level research university and as the major move to perfect discipline system, this year School of Environmental Science and Engineering is newly established. How does the environmental discipline of SUSTC develop to be excellent as soon as possible and how to make significations to the work of water resources and environmental protection work in Shenzhen?

Zheng Chunmiao is a famous hydrogeologist, previous holding posts as the lifelong chair professor of Department of Geological Sciences of the University of Alabama in US and chair professor and director in the Research Center of Water Resources of Peking University. As the first-appointed president to found School of Environmental Science and Engineering of SUSTC, he and his colleagues are conducting the brand-new experiment on research and teaching reform.

Professor Zheng has outstanding research achievements and international influence in the field of hydrogeology and water environment. The famous groundwater flow and solute transport software MT3D developed by him is the most widely-used solute transport simulation tools in the world, which is applied in more than one hundred countries. In recognition of his contribution, Geological Society of America in 2013 awarded him O.E. Meinzer Award. The award was established in 1965, naming after O.E. Meinzer –“the father of modern American modern hydrogeology” and was annually bestowed to the scholars who have made remarkable contributions in the field of international hydrogeology and related fields and is recognized as the highest honor in international hydrogeological domain. Likewise in 2013, Professor Zheng also received the M. King Hubbert Award bestowed by the National Ground Water Association of US. The award is bestowed to individuals who make significant contributions to scientific research and practical application of groundwater. Professor Zheng Chunmiao is the first Chinese scholar to win the two international awards, also setting the precedent to obtain both awards in the same year.

We can gain quicker understanding of School of Environmental Science and Engineering of SUSTC by 8 brief questions and answers of Professor Zheng Chunmiao.

Question: what makes you decide to start up business in SUSTC instead of enjoying original stable job?  
Answer: I can totally live my life easily in the United States until retirement after I received tenured professorship of American University. However, I prefer to continuously challenge the upper limit of my ability rather than enjoy the easy life. As entering new century, china has been facing serious problems for shortage of resources and environmental damage. It is exactly god-given opportunity for me to give my country something back by playing my specialty. So I came back to China in 2006 and got a part-time job in Peking University, engaging in relevant scientific researches and talent cultivation. Relying on the excellent platform provided by Peking University, my team and I have achieved lots of results on scientific theory and research during this decade but I hope to gain greater achievements on talent cultivation and engineering practice. The new talent cultivation system in SUSTC and remarkable market economic environment in Shenzhen provide me with good conditions to make new breakthrough. Moreover, the concepts of President Chen Shiyi on school management further boost my confidence to start up business in SUSTC. So I put a moment on WeChat, saying “the world is so big but I only want to go to SUSTC!”

Question: What’s your overall plan for Environmental College in SUSTC?  
Answer: Establish a real and world-class School of Environmental Science and Engineering. Scientific researches of the school will concentrate on solving currently urgent environmental problems including pollution of water, air and soil. Our main learning objectives are the talent cultivation models in Stanford University and California Institute of Technology. The former one is distinctive in terms of innovation and startup while the elites cultivation model of later one is unique throughout the world. Moreover, engineering and technology innovation center in SUSTC and Shenzhen key laboratory for soil and groundwater pollution are established by relying on the school. They will provide high-quality platforms for college to realize the transformation of research achievements. 

Question: What’s your plan and measures for introduction of professors? And can you introduce some brilliant professors currently in the college?
Answer: the introduced professors need not only to be first-rate academically but also possess outstanding abilities on teaching and solving practical problems.

For example, Professor Hu Qing, the team led by her concentrates on soil. She is the doctor of Imperial College London on environmental engineering and also was the chairman of China Energy Conservation DADI Environmental Remediation Co., Ltd.. In various professional fields such as water supply and drainage, sludge treatment, contaminated site remediation, Professor Hu has accumulated profound theoretical knowledge and extensive management experience in projects at home and abroad. Professor Hu is also one member of technical committee for the highest prize in current international water field-Swedish Stockholm Water Prize. (Note: only nine members in the world)

Professor Liu Chongxuan is doctor of The Johns Hopkins University on environmental engineering. His research area is biochemical process of large watershed, mainly about the migration, conversion, prevention and treatment of metal, radionuclide and organic pollutants in soil and groundwater. He is good at depicting geochemical and biogeochemical reaction kinetics and mass transfer process through methods of combining experiment, theory with numerical simulation and building mathematical model. He also actively develops new methods for prevention and treatment of soil and groundwater pollution.

Professor Li Hailong is doctor of Hong Kong University on hydrogeololgy and winner of “China National Outstanding Youth Science Foundation” (shorted as “Outstanding Youth”). On multicomponent and multiphase flow as well as eco-environment effects in underground of coastal zone, he has gained various achievements with international influence. He has also published the first or corresponding author articles on Nature Geoscience, Scientific Reports or otherwise. Now he is presiding the key project of Natural Science Foundation of China –“research on groundwater discharge and its environmental effects in seabed of Bohai and Kiaochow Bay” and one subject of 973 Projects-“migration and transformation rules of nutrient substance in bays and its environmental effects”.       

Professor Liu Junguo is the doctor of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich on environmental sciences. He mainly engages in researches on hydrology and water resource as well as wetland eco-systems. He has published over 70 papers on publications such as Nature, Science and PNAS and his articles has been enlisted in “A Hundred Most Influential International Academic Papers in China” and “ESI Highly Cited Papers in the World in Recent Ten Years”.

At present, we also introduced a few of promising research and teaching staff. We have recommended several candidates for “Young overseas high-level talents introduction plan”. In the future we will introduce outstanding experts and scholars with different levels in succession.

Question: What’s your plan and measures on student cultivation? 
Answer: we hope the students we have taught can possess not only profound foundation of scientific theory but brilliant practical ability. This year we have applied to set undergraduate course “Environmental Science and Engineering”. Our country has enormous demand for interdisciplinary talents with creative thinking, internationalized vision and practice ability on environment subject. The cultivation of undergraduates is the cultivation foundation of national high-quality talents. Many domestic universities have undergraduate course of “Environmental Science and Engineering” due to the importance of environmental protection and have achieved remarkable results on talents cultivation. However, the existing teaching on “Environmental Science and Engineering” still has more space for improvement and innovation under the new situation at home and abroad. First, the separation of environmental science and environmental engineering goes against cultivation of interdisciplinary talents on environment subject. Second, the key points of teaching are still on conventional pollution prevention and treatment with less attention on cleanness, efficient usage and recycling of resource and little involvement on emerging environmental protection industry, environmental protection products, environmental services. Third, the setting of curriculum has fragmentation phenomena for regional segmentation, lack of new curriculum design oriented by crosses and integration between subjects and actual problems. “Environmental Science and Engineering” we set will actively and bravely research the above problems. We hope to cultivate scientific research, management and engineering technical personnel through methods such as improvement of courses structure, perfection of teaching contents and innovation of practical teaching since these kinds of talents are urgently needed in environmental area under the new situation of cultivation in China. 

Question: On research areas, which areas do you hope to put emphasis on? Why?
Answer: Science and technology about water, atmospheric environment (pollution prevention and treatment), treatment and resource recovery of solid waste and earth system science. Pure water and air are the basic environmental elements for the survival of mankind. Our country also considers treatment of water, soil and air pollution as the most important environmental protection work and continuously carries out “ten measures for prevention and treatment of air pollution”, “ten measures for water pollution control action plan” and upcoming “ten measures for soil environmental protection and pollution control action plan”. To meet the national strategic demands, we developed the research of science and technology about water, atmospheric environment. Since treatment and disposal of solid waste is one of major environmental issues in process of urbanization and the resource contained in solid waste has not been fully made use of, the research of treatment and resource recovery of solid waste has significant meaning for development of urbanization in China and establishment of recycling economy. In addition, we still need to pay attention to earthly environment except small environments surround us which need the research of earthly environment from the angle of system science.
           
Question: What’s the plan for building interdisciplinary science? 
Answer: Environment and engineering itself is a kind of interdisciplinary science. We will specially emphasize intersectionality on scientific research and teaching in the future. For instance, the problem of environmental pollution and human health has involved the cross of environmental sciences and medical science; the treatment problem of solid waste has involved the cross of environmental sciences and chemical engineering. On teaching, we will fully reflect the characteristics of Interdisciplinary Science through setting of curriculum. The students can not only select courses from our college but extensively select courses from every colleges and departments of SUSTC. 

Question: To encourage the teachers and students innovation and entrepreneurship, and do you have any plans?
Answer: It is the specialty of SUSTC to encourage student’s innovation and entrepreneurship, and it will be the specialty of the Environmental Science and Engineering College as well. The SUSTC Engineering Technology Innovation Center basing our college will be a platform for the teachers and students innovation and entrepreneurship in our college. The Centre will provide comprehensive support to the teachers and students who are interested in entrepreneurship in technology transfer, team-building, financing, promotion and advertising. 

Question: How long do you expect to implement all those ideas? What goals do you want to set for short, medium and long term plans?
Answer: In recent one or two years, it is our team-building period, in five years our college strives to rank the forefront of the national environment, in ten years we will make a world well-known Environmental Science and Engineering Research Institute and Excellent Talent Training Base out of our college. We will also try our best to build an international think-tank on global environmental issues. We are eager to invite talents at home and abroad to join in our cause from the bottom of our heart, to create a world-class, multi-disciplinary innovative platform for environmental research.

As far as I know, the Environmental Science and Engineering College has agreed to hold the international meeting for ‘Groundwater Quality 2016’. At present, the college is arranging the meeting actively. This is the top international meeting in the field of groundwater environment, which will be held every three years. The meeting of 2016 will be held in Asia and China for the first time, and President Zheng Chunmiao will be the chairman of the conference. At the time, high-level experts in the field of the groundwater and surface water environmental research at home and abroad will come together to discuss the theoretical research frontier of groundwater and surface water pollution, cutting-edge technology development and successful management experience.