News

OIA Christmas Tree DIY Event for All Students for Cultural Exchange

Christmas is around the corner. In order to connect international students and foster cultural exchanges, the Office of International Affairs of NTNU hosted Christmas tree making activities on December 13 and 14. Over 100 teachers and students enrolled for the DIY event and the campus is full of Christmas elements and festive atmosphere.

First Overseas Recruitment of NTU System After the Pandemic

National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Normal University, and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology are top universities in Taiwan as comprehensive, educational, and technical vocational universities respectively. In March 2016, the Ministry of Education approved the establishment of“National Taiwan University System”as an alliance in order to integrate, share resources, strengthen teaching and research, expand services to the society with the goal to become the world's top university system.

NTNU Establishes Strategic Relationships with Top Universities in the United States

Vice President of NTNU Yung-hsiang Frank Ying led a delegation to the United States recently, visiting Purdue University (QS ranking 129th), Pennsylvania State University (QS ranking 93rd), University of California, Santa Barbara (THE ranking 64th). NTNU has met with Purdue University in regards to partner universities and Taiwan Huayu BEST Program; deepened collaboration as strategic partners and held the workshop under the Taiwan Huayu BEST Program at Penn State University; and met with the principal and Chinese teachers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This trip not only promotes the exchanges between NTNU and well-known universities in the United States, it is also a great opportunity to reinforce our strategic partnerships and expand the Taiwan Huayu BEST Program.

The First Tenured Asian Woman Professor at Caltech, Prof. Nai-Chang Yeh Shines in the World of Physics

The first tenured woman professor in physics and also the first tenured Asian woman professor at Caltech, Prof. Nai-Chang Yeh was granted the Yushan Scholar Program by the Ministry of Education in year 2021. Prof. Yeh was invited to teach at NTNU and she started the lessons in Taiwan in July. Born in 1961 and grew up in Chiayi, Taiwan, Prof. Yeh set the goal at age 12 and went to the US for graduate education and obtained her Ph.D. in physics in 1988 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She became the Assistant Professor of Caltech at only 26. She focused on quantum materials, topological materials, low-dimensional materials and nanotechnology.

The Magic of Transforming Carbon Dioxide to Ethanol: An Analysis of Copper-Based Electrochemical Catalysts

Copper electrocatalysts have been shown in the past literature to selectively reduce carbon dioxide to hydrocarbons. However, due to the lack of systematic studies on time-scale resolved spectral features, the selectivity resulted from the surface atomic characteristics of the copper catalyst– could be copper metal or copper oxide, along the reaction path remains uncertain. This study introduces an X-ray absorption spectrum with a few seconds resolution scale to observe the chemical state evolution of catalysts in reactions. Under specific experimental conditions, it was observed that the average oxidation state consisted of the mixed oxidation states on the surface of copper material could be stably maintained on the electrode surface, thus steadily increasing the effective yield of ethanol. Combined with the first-principles simulations, the catalytic reaction pathway of CO2 conversion can be derived step-by-step and verified by experimental observations.