(Reported by Gang Lu) On the morning of May 13, at the invitation of the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor Tao Chen from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, CAS, delivered a lecture titled《Polymer Hydrogels》in Room A326 of the School. The event was attended by Liwei Xiong, Vice Dean of the School, Liuyong Hu, Assistant to the Dean, faculty representatives, and over 60 faculty members and students from the School. The lecture also drew doctoral students in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering from the Naval University of Engineering. The session was moderated by Vice Dean Liwei Xiong.

Professor Chen began by looking back on his own journey—his studies in China, research visits abroad, and the formation of his team after returning home. Focusing on the biomimetic design and performance tuning of smart polymer hydrogel materials, he gave a detailed account of their applications in areas such as shape and color changing, moisture-driven water harvesting, information storage, camouflage and anti-counterfeiting, and air purification. The entire talk was both witty and rich in substance, drawing enthusiastic applause from the faculty and students in attendance.

During the exchange session, Professor Chen engaged in an in-depth discussion with the faculty and students on the engineering application prospects and microscopic mechanisms of polymer hydrogels. He encouraged everyone to find joy in scientific research and to actively pursue academic exchanges with experts both at home and abroad. He also extended a warm welcome to faculty members in related fields to visit his research group for further exchange and study.

After the lecture, Liuyong Hu, Assistant to the Dean, and Gang Lu, a faculty member of the School of Materials Science and Engineering, accompanied Professor Tao Chen on a tour of the university's National Defense Science and Technology Research Center.

The lecture not only gave the attending faculty and students a deeper understanding of the latest research advances in polymer hydrogels and broadened their academic horizons, but also provided a strong boost to the development of materials science at the university and to academic collaboration and exchange.

About the Speaker: Tao Chen is a Professor (Grade 2) and doctoral supervisor at the State Key Laboratory of Marine Key Materials, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, CAS. He earned his Ph.D. from Zhejiang University in 2006 and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Warwick in the UK and Duke University in the US. As a Humboldt Fellow, he also carried out research at Technische Universität Dresden in Germany. In 2012, he joined NIMTE and founded the Smart Polymer Materials group, where his work focuses on applying biomimetic smart polymer materials in areas such as marine biomimetics, soft robotics, information storage, and energy management. He has published over 300 papers in journals including Chem. Soc. Rev., Prog. Polym. Sci., Acc. Chem. Res., Acc. Mater. Res., Adv. Mater., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Nature Communications, and Matter, accumulating more than 25,000 citations and an H-index of 87. He also holds over 40 granted national invention patents. The research projects he has led include those under the National Key R&D Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Youth, General, and Sino-German cooperation and exchange programs), the Frontier Key Research Program and International Cooperation Key Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Major Program and Distinguished Young Scientist Program of the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2021. Currently, he serves on the Academic and Degree Committee of NIMTE, is a member of the Biomimetic Materials Chemistry Committee of the Chinese Chemical Society, and serves as Executive Director of the Hydrogel Division of the Chinese Materials Research Society. He is also an Associate Editor of SmartMat and Supramolecular Materials.