What does it feel like to receive full scholarships for PhD programs from many top universities and publish a paper in one of the most authoritative academic weekly journals? The senior student of the UM-SJTU Joint Institute Fei Jiani has the answer. Not only did she receive the notices for a PhD full scholarship offered by 7 top universities in the world, including Stanford University in the US, but her independent scientific research output - Nevanlinna Analytical Continuation - was published in Physical Review Letters, one of the top academic weekly journals in the field of physics, with herself as the first author (Link to the paper), which was put on the homepage of the website of the journal with the Editors’ Suggestion. So what did she do to achieve all of these as an undergraduate? Let’s take a look!
Fei Jiani’s paper “Nevanlinna Analytical Continuation” was published in Physical Review Letters with herself as the first author and received the Editors’ Suggestion
Her hard work led her to the discovery of the Nevanlinna structure in the Green’s function. Previous continuation methods would exponentially amplify the uncertainty and could not ensure the timing sequence of causality. Fei’s algorithm provided groundbreaking data accuracy. And this numerical method can be widely applied and contribute to the research in energy band structure, optics, and neutron scattering, which is one of the reason why her paper was published in Physical Review Letters. And she also said it is essential to keep good communication with your professor, so that he or she would know more about you, provide more support to your scientific study and maintain sincere relations with you.
Fei Jiani is studying at home
In addition to her achievement in scientific research, she also benefited a lot from the lectures of the UM-SJTU Joint Institute. She said, “I appreciate the teaching methodology of the UM-SJTU Joint Institute, as I think it’s not about doing exercises but about understanding and exploration. I was very much impressed by the mathematical analysis and engineering introduction courses. In the mathematical analysis course, Professor Horst Hohberger spoke very fast but very logically and presented comprehensive demonstrations of many theories. And the way he talked about the theories looked very charming.” “After class, I would try to derive all the mathematical formula, and during which I found my interest in scientific theories. In the engineering introduction course, every group worked on a project from selecting a topic to finally presented an engineering project,” she said, “So by taking this course, you can soon grasp what engineering really is and get to see your interest in it. Studying at the Joint Institute is competitive but memorable. And it is also fascinating to be able to learn something new.”