28-year-old becomes youngest school vice-president

Liu Mingzhen, born in 1990, was formally appointed vice-president of School of Materials and Energy of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) on Jan 19, and became the youngest vice-president of the school.

She was also the youngest candidate involved in China's Recruitment Program for Young Professionals when she was 26 in 2015. This program called for overseas strategic scientists or leading talents who can make breakthroughs in key technologies or can enhance China’s high-tech industries and emerging disciplines back to China.

Liu is qualified owing to her excellent research outcomes on perovskite solar cells. During her PhD period in University of Oxford, she published an article as the first author on Nature, one of the world's top academic journals, and has been cited more than 3,000 times, according to Scopus, a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles.

She has organized her research group after she was employed as a professor by UESTC in 2015. Now, she devotes herself in solar energy materials' application on optical devices, and promoting industrialized production to break through the dilemma of traditional solar energy industry.

Liu was born and grew up in Chongqing in Southwest China. She said the reason why she gave up her job in the United Kingdom and decided to teach in UESTC is because UESTC is located in Chengdu in Sichuan province, near her hometown Chongqing.

She said she would do her best to cultivate talents and help develop the discipline of the school.