1. Congratulations on winning the Sensors Travel Award! Can you tell us about your current research interests? What motivated you to pursue this area of study?

Thank you. My current research interests focus on meta-surface-aided wireless communications, sensing, and computing, and more broadly, the theory and applications of structured waves.

At a high level, I work on one core idea: instead of treating the wireless channel as something we can only “adapt to”, we should be able to engineer it. Programmable meta-surfaces (including reflective and transmissive ones) make this possible by giving us a physical-layer “knob” to reshape propagation—steering energy, controlling phases, suppressing interference, and improving coverage in NLOS scenarios—and enabling sensing capabilities using the same signals.

In parallel, I’m interested in structured waves—for example, electromagnetic fields with engineered spatial structures (such as OAM modes, surface/leaky-wave phenomena, or other spatially structured wavefronts). These waves are not only mathematically elegant; they also offer extra degrees of freedom in the spatial domain. When you combine them with programmable structures, you get a powerful platform for:

1) Reliable links in difficult propagation environments;

2) Joint sensing and communication, where the environment becomes part of the sensing system;

3) Wireless energy focusing, where you care about where the power goes, not just the data rate.

What motivated me to pursue this direction is a very practical gap I kept seeing: wireless research often looks great in ideal models, but real environments are messy—blockage, mobility, hardware constraints, and interference dominate. Meta-surfaces and structured waves are exciting because they offer a path to bridge theory and real deployments: you can design algorithms, but you can also build and validate the physical structure that makes those algorithms meaningful. Our current research can be found at https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=zh-CN&user=YP8JEKEAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate.

2. Attending international conferences is an essential part of scientific collaboration and growth. How do you plan to promote the journal at the conference? What is the significance of attending such conferences in expanding your international cooperation or enhancing your academic influence?

I see the conference as a chance to contribute back to the community and also actively promote Sensors in a way that’s useful rather than “advertising”.

How do I plan to promote the journal?

1) Reference Sensors in a meaningful way during my talk/on my poster:
If relevant, I’ll highlight how Sensors is a strong home for work at the intersection of hardware + algorithms + real-world validation, especially for metasurfaces, wireless sensing, and integrated systems.

2) Encourage high-quality submissions through topic-focused conversations:
In discussions with researchers, I’ll point out the types of papers that fit well within Sensors’ scope.

3) Invite collaborations around Special Issues/Topical Collections:
Many researchers don’t realize how helpful a well-scoped Special Issue can be for building momentum in a niche topic. If I meet groups working on closely aligned areas, I can propose ideas and connect them with appropriate editorial channels.

Why does attending matter for international cooperation and academic influence?

As we know, conferences are essential because many strong collaborations start with high-bandwidth technical conversations that are hard to replicate over email. Meeting people in person accelerates trust and shared understanding. For me, the biggest value is to build collaborations.

3. Do you have any advice for aspiring young researchers looking to make a meaningful impact in their respective fields?

If I had to give practical advice, I’d emphasize three things:

1) Pick a problem that survives contact with reality. Ask early: What happens when assumptions break? In meta-surfaces, for example, small non-idealities—phase quantization, coupling, calibration error, imperfect CSI—can dominate performance. If your idea still works under realistic constraints, it’s far more impactful.

2) Be bilingual: theory + implementation (even at a minimal level). You don’t need a massive lab to start. But having even a modest prototype mindset—measurement plan, hardware awareness, reproducibility—will make your work stand out. The community is increasingly valuing results that are verifiable, not only “simulatable”.

3) Build your research identity around a method, not a single topic. Topics shift fast. Methods scale.

And one very tactical tip: write and share early—a clean preprint, a reproducible figure, a small dataset, or a well-explained baseline. Visibility often follows clarity.

4. Do you have any suggestions for improving the visibility of these awards?

A few ideas that could make the awards more visible and more meaningful:

1) Create a short “Winner Spotlight” package. A one-page profile (problem, method, contribution, what’s next). It’s highly shareable and helps readers quickly understand the winner’s impact.

2) Connect the award to a curated topical collection. For example, a “Travel Award Winners Collection” or a “Rising Stars in Sensors” collection, updated annually. This turns the award into a persistent discovery channel.

3) Enable conference-facing visibility. Provide a digital badge/slide template that winners can place on posters and talks. It spreads awareness organically during conferences and also benefits the journal’s brand.

5. What is your opinion on open access publishing, and how do you think it benefits the scientific community?

I’m generally positive about open access because it reduces friction in how scientific knowledge spreads—especially across countries, institutions, and industry. Open access also supports faster iteration: people can read, reuse, and build on results more quickly. That said, I think the key is maintaining strong standards—clear novelty, rigorous validation, and transparent methodology—so that accessibility is matched by quality. When done well, open access strengthens the entire ecosystem.

6. As the winner of this award, would you like to take a moment to share your thoughts with the readers or express gratitude towards those who have played a significant role in your research accomplishments?

I’m sincerely grateful to Sensors and MDPI for recognizing my work with this Travel Award. I see it not only as encouragement, but also as a responsibility—to represent the community well and to contribute back through high-quality research and collaboration. I’d also like to thank my mentors, collaborators, and colleagues who have shaped my thinking, especially those who pushed me to connect theory with reality: to test assumptions, to build prototypes, and to focus on problems that matter in deployment. To the readers: if you work on sensing, communications, or programmable electromagnetic systems, I hope you’ll see Sensors as a place where interdisciplinary, implementation-aware research can be shared and amplified.