Features

Prof. Hung-Jen Wang, VP for Academic Affairs:

A Learning Environment Like No Other

NTU Office of Academic Affairs has been vigorously advancing the Future NTU program for several years, with the objective of establishing a learner-centered open university. A primary aim of the program is to transcend the barriers between various academic disciplines, thereby affording students a flexible learning environment. As part of this initiative, NTU launched the nation’s inaugural Specialization Program Certificate and University-Level Interdisciplinary Bachelor’s Degree Program, thereby actualizing its goal of integrating “interdisciplinarity” and “autonomous learning” within the curriculum.

Honor

Japan E×S Challenge Award Winning Team Led by Prof. Sung-Jan Lin

Distinguished Prof. Sung-Jan Lin of the Department of Biomedical Engineering leads the Lab of Tissue Engineering and Regeneration at NTU as Principal Investigator. His lab members, Postdoctoral Fellow Yueh-Feng Wu and master students Men-Wei Lin and Shang-Wei Hung, formed a team and won the School of Engineering E×S Challenge Award at the 2nd Engineering School E×S Challenge organized by Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Global Outlook

Explore Democratic Resilience with Czech Delegation

On March 28th, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, led a delegation of over 30 Czech delegates to visit NTU and attend the Taiwan-Czechia Forum on Democratic Resilience. The event, co-hosted by NTU and the European Values Center for Security Policy (EVC), gathered experts in the field to share information and engage in serious discussions regarding the furtherance of democratic resilience.

NTU’s First-Ever iNGO Academy Boosts International Engagement

Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) play an important role in advancing Taiwan’s relations with the international community and realizing its sustainability goals. To foster talent with the competencies and skills to participate in NGOs, NTU hosted the orientation and signing ceremony of the “NTU iNGO Academy” in January. This program not only offers all-English courses so students will acquire the necessary knowledge and language skills, but also a 16-week internship with local NGOs, ensuring that the participants are competent and have the hands-on experience to make valuable contributions to global issues.

Navigate Sustainability and Employability in Higher Education with QS

Early this year, NTU and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a British company that analyzes higher education institutions worldwide, co-hosted a seminar, “NTU x OS Workshop: Navigating Sustainability and Employability in Taiwan’s Higher Education.” The seminar brought together industry and academic experts to discuss the sustainability and development of higher education in Taiwan.

Fragments of the Future ─ GIS Taiwan 2023

Energy Reform, New Paradigm of Healthcare, Currency Remodeling, and Metaverse

Hosted by NTU’s Office of Student Affairs and organized by its student organizing committee, Global Initiatives Symposium Taiwan (GIS Taiwan) held its 14th Annual International Academic Conference for five days early this year at NTU.

Achievements

Key to Resilience Management Provided by Novel Method

An international research team led by Professors Chih-hao Hsieh and Chun-Wei Chang of NTU’s Institute of Oceanography and Institute of Fishery Sciences, have developed a new technique that predicts the occurrence and type of various critical transition events. This novel methodology, known as Dynamical Eigen-Value (DEV), leverages early warning signals obtained from real-world systems to differentiate types of critical transitions and identify the quantitative threshold for critical transition, overcoming numerous research challenges. The team’s discovery also provides a way to effectively monitor changes in system

Metabolites from Solid-State Fermentation of Djulis Sprouts in Bioreactor

Chenopodium formosanum (Djulis), a pseudo cereal plant, native to Taiwan, is known to possess numerous nutrients and antioxidants. A research team at NTU’s Institute of Biotechnology has demonstrated that the nutritional values of Djulis could be enhanced by bioconversion.

Participation in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6

Taiwan Multi-Scale Community Ocean Model’s First Global Engagement

During the past decade, Prof. Yu-Heng Tseng of the Institute of Oceanography, College of Science, has led a local research team in developing the high-efficiency Taiwan Multi-scale Community Ocean Model (TIMCOM). His team originally developed TIMCOM in Taiwan as a accurate regional ocean model to simulate the regional circulation in the western North Pacific. More recently, advanced features, including the meso-scale parameterization, vertical turbulent mixing and a sea ice model, were incorporated within TIMCOM to simulate the global ocean and sea ice changes.

Unearthing the Past to Save the Present: Conservation Paleobiology

Conservation paleobiology may not be a household term, but it is a field of great importance for present-day conservation efforts. This field is not just about conserving and studying the fossil remains of extinct species but also using the information gathered from these materials to assist in conserving modern-day species and ecosystems. Such studies involve the use of fossil records to gain insight into how species and ecosystems responded to environmental changes in the past. By understanding how they adapted, conservation paleobiologists can predict how present-day species might respond to present and future changes in the environment and the climate.

Queenless Beehive Box

Solution to Pollination in the Greenhouse

Prof. En-Cheng Yang and his research team at NTU’s Department of Entomology have developed a new technology for pollination by replacing queen bees with their pheromones, which can solve a long-standing problem faced by farmers—the lack of bees to pollinate their crops.

Teaching & Learning

Interaction at Intersection: Post-Pandemic Faculty Training

Although NTU is a research university, it also continues to attach great importance to the overall quality of instruction. Even during the pandemic, NTU has continued to prioritize the professional development of its faculty through a workshop called “T+ Camp.” Because student demand for and ability to take charge of their own learning significantly increased during the pandemic, traditional teaching methods and long-standing curricula can no longer meet the learning demands and needs of students today.

People

Virtual Reality and Real-Life Charm: 2023 Azalea Festival

Spring has arrived and the NTU campus is awash with vibrant hues of pink as her signature azaleas burst into bloom. It’s time for the highly-anticipated annual NTU Azalea Festival, a celebration of the campus’s unique charm and vitality that draws aspiring young students from all over the country.

Cultural Exchange: Winning Big at Mahjong Night

Olivia, an international student in Taiwan from California, had a special treat—her first “Mahjong” night at NTU. Cautiously reaching for the tiles in front of her, Olivia soon grasped the game under the watchful eye of Claire, a local NTU student. “The tension is mounting!” shouted Katelan, a spectator. As Olivia revealed a triplet on the table, cheers erupted from everyone around her—“She won!”

The Mastermind behind Meta AI Speech Translation

Last year, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, demonstrated the company’s latest translation technology, a system that translates speech-to-speech in real-time between English and multiple languages, making it a real game-changer in the field of translation technology. In a video Zuckerberg posted on Facebook, he introduced Taiwanese engineer Peng-Jen Chen and they spoke in their respective language, English and Hokkien, through the speech-to-speech translation system. The successful translation of their conversation in real time showcased the creation of the world’s first-ever speech-to-speech translation system for unwritten languages, such as Hokkien.