The Awarding Ceremony of Dr. Wu Qinghua as Guangbiao Chair Professor and Dr. Wu's Lecture

On the afternoon of Jan. 4th, 2010, an awarding ceremony was held at  Electrical Engineering Building on Yuquan Campus, to grant Dr. Wu Qinghua, (tenured professor, University of Liverpool, UK.)  Guangbiao Chair  Professor of ZJU.

After the ceremony, Prof. Wu presented an academic report entitled "Group Search Optimizer ---- an Optimization Algorithm Inspired by Animal Searching Behaviour". Everyone was encouraged to by him to seek for ideas and inspiration from nature, and gain new algorithm from animal behavior. In the report, Prof. Wu divided animal behavior into three main categories: producer behavior, scrounger behavior and the ranger behavior, and pointed out the importance of each type of behavior. He further demonstrated the superiority of the GSO algorithm by making a comparison with PSO and GA algorithms. In addition, he stressed the importance of basic research and writing, particularly the significance of rigorous and innovative scientific research. After the report, Professor Wu had a lively discussion with teachers and students present.

Ever since 1995, Prof. Wu has been a tenured professor from Depa. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Liverpool, UK. His research interests mainly include power automation, intelligent control, power electronics,and so on. Prof. Wu has undertaken many international research projects from British Telecom company, Alstom Inc., State Power Corporation, State Grid Corporation, U.S. General Electric Company, NI, General Cable and many others, and gained large amount of research funding from British government and international companies. He is currently leading a e-Automation Laboratory with participation of 25 doctoral and post-doctoral students.

Professor Wu has also been keeping a close contact with academic counterparts. Currently as Consulting Professor of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Visiting Professor of China Electric Power Research Institute, He comes back every year to give lectures on a regular basis to introduce domestic counterparts the most cutting-edge research and his own technological achievements. He has also carried out close co-operations with some well-known domestic enterprises in technology research and product development.