Eye on NYU Shanghai: Fall 2014 Newsletter 聚焦上海纽约大学: 2014学年秋季快讯

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Fall is in the air as we greet old friends and make new ones at NYU Shanghai's stunning new campus on Century Avenue!
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A Beautiful New Home and a New

Class of Students

美丽的新家园，可爱的新学生
 NYU Shanghai leadership cut the cake to celebrate a new academic year in our new campus.
开学典礼上，学校领导在切巨型的上海纽约大学蛋糕。
 
After months of eager anticipation and careful preparation, NYU Shanghai has finally settled into its new home in Pudong. This issue will show you around the inner workings of our brand new campus, as well as give you some highlights from our second orientation week. We’ll also talk about the exciting developments in computer science with brilliant new NYU Shanghai professor Zhang Zheng, meet a student from our new class of 2018, and hear about NYU Shanghai's evacuation of 15 students from Tel Aviv this summer. 

我们终于搬进了期待已久的上海纽约大学浦东新校园。这一期的简报，我们将带您参观新校园的内外周边，并重点关注第二届新生的迎新周；谈到电脑科学部的喜人发展，我们将对话上海纽约大学的新教授张峥；认识一位新生，以及了解上海纽约大学在暑假怎样从以色列紧急转移了15名学生。
 
A Place to Call Home
我们的家园

It has been a long but worthwhile wait for our Pudong campus to be completed. From day one, our students, faculty, and staff have taken to the new building like fish to water. Take a virtual tour of our wonderful new home!

期待已久的浦东校园竣工了。从第一天起，我们的学生、教职员工就在这里如鱼得水。请让以下的视频带您参观我们的新家园！
 
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In the two short months since we moved into our new home, we've been busy....
在我们搬来新校园的短短两个月里我们忙着……

hosting an internship fair
举办实习见面会

running a successful fire drill
成功的完成消防演习

setting up healthy lunch options
准备健康午餐

opening up our auditorium
开放我们的礼堂

and serving coffee, sandwiches, and cakes in our second floor cafe. 
在二楼咖啡厅提供咖啡、三明治和蛋糕。
 
New students, new faculty, and a new campus. Good things come in threes, but what truly made this year's orientation great was the way the entire academic community came together to make its new class of freshmen feel at home. Week One orientation activities led by our fantastic Student Life team ranged from a welcome barbecue to visits to local Shanghai sights to a live cabaret show featuring our very own students. The excitement continued during Week Two, as 2018 students kept the NYU Shanghai tradition of giving back to the community through service projects and battled it out against the sophomore-seniors in the All University Games.

新生、新教师、新校园，好事连连，上海纽约大学的教授们在学术界的卓越贡献共同构成今年迎新周的亮点。在第一周里，学生事务部带领大家举行烧烤活动，参观上海经典景点，学生们自编自导自演了精彩节目。在第二周里，新生们参与的社会服务项目保持了上海纽约大学回馈社会的传统，还在上海纽约大学运动会里跟二年级学生火热竞技。
 
NYU Shanghai Reality Show

上海纽约大学学生音乐舞台剧

One of the most unique traditions at New York University is the Reality Show - a musical performance put on by seniors at NYU for incoming freshmen every fall. The shows are meant to dispense advice, teach NYU tradition, and welcome new students to the university. 

纽约大学最具特色的传统之一无疑是一年一度的Reality Show。每一年度，四年级的学生为秋季入学的新生表演舞台剧，用剧情来诠释给学生们的建议、学校的传统，并欢迎新生们来到纽约大学这个大家庭。

This summer, 14 NYU Shanghai students traveled to New York to continue the tradition, and bring it home to Shanghai. They worked with the Tisch School of the Arts to create a performance that would truly reflect the struggles and joys of being an NYU Shanghai student, covering a wide range of subjects both local and universal including homesickness, air pollution, self-image, and academic stress. 

今年夏天，14名上海纽约大学的学生前往纽约传承这个传统，将精彩表演带给上海的同学们。他们与Tisch艺术学院联袂创造了一组反映上海纽约大学生活中的问题与快乐。主题涉及宽泛，包括思乡之情、空气污染、自我形象以及课业压力。

NYU President John Sexton was front row center at the show, opening the performance with a touching story about his first kiss, underlining the importance of tradition, and exhorting students to "take care of each other".

纽约大学校长John Sexton坐在演出大厅的前排观看，表演开始之前，他给同学们讲述了自己的“初吻故事”，让同学们懂得了“彼此关爱”。
Our student performers giving it their all. 
学生演员们在舞台上全力以赴，激情演绎。
A standing ovation from the class of 2018, parents, faculty, and staff. 
表演圆满结束，所有2018新学员、家长和教务人员都起立鼓掌。
 
Orientation Week Parents' Panel

迎新周家长论坛

A special parents' panel was held during orientation week. During this program, parents of NYU Shanghai students got together to share their perspectives, expectations, and concerns for their children's education. Subjects that were discussed included the changes their children had gone through since attending NYU Shanghai, their expectations for athletics at NYU Shanghai in the future, as well as their hopes for NYU Shanghai and the entire NYU global network university. A question and answer session followed the panel discussion. 

迎新周里，特别举办了家长论坛活动。上海纽约大学的学生家长们聚集在一起分享他们的观点、期待、以及对孩子教育的关注点。讨论的话题包括孩子上学前后对上海纽约大学的印象，以及对未来上海纽约大学和纽约大学全球教育的前瞻。这些话题之后，还安排了问答环节。
 
 
Class of 2018 by the Numbers

数字解读2018新生

We've created these handy infographics to give you a better understanding of our newest class of students as well as our faculty additions this year. 

以下的图表，可以一目了然地了解上海纽约大学的新生及新教师的信息。
今年一年级的每个学位都有40多人申请。
今年全国有940万名高考生，上海纽约大学入学的所有中国学生均来自于全国范围内的前千分之一。
今年的大一新生让上海纽约大学的学生人数翻了一倍，同时让我们的学校更加多元化。
上海纽约大学今年的国际学生里有27%是家庭第一代大学生。
在新学年里，我们的教师人员来自66种不同的学术背景，去年有25种。
现以有过来自20个不同国家的教师。
 
Getting to Know the Class of 2018
结识大一新生

Li Hao (Harry Lee) 李昊



My name is Li Hao, I am from a small city in southwest China called Dali. In this beautiful city, I grew up quite close to nature and had the fortune to experience a multicultural environment. I love my hometown unconditionally, but the educational resources there are somewhat limited. In my schooldays, I was just an ordinary boy with average grades and the usual interests like sports and music, but what made me different from the other people at my school were my dreams of attending a world-famous university. I wanted to experience that kind of thriving academic community. However, because both of my parents are among the working-class I was told very early on that such a university was out of our league. Faced with this, I still could not let go of my dream, and decided to forge on despite the difficult path ahead. This has been a decision I will never regret.

我是李昊，来自中国西南的小城大理。在这个美丽的地方，我能够亲近自然，并有幸经历多元的文化环境。我热爱着我的家乡，虽然这里的教学资源相对有限。在学校里，我只是一个很普通的男孩，成绩一般，喜欢运动和音乐，让我与别人有所不同的是，我梦想能够上一所世界知名的大学。我渴望亲身体验活跃的学术团体。可我的父母都是普通的上班族，所以很小的时候我就知道这个梦想离我是多么的遥远。面对现实，我始终不愿放弃我的梦想，虽然前路艰难，我还是决定要坚持下去。这是我一辈子都不会后悔的决定。


It has been a long and difficult road leading me here. If you had told me I would be attending NYU Shanghai while I was going through the torturous process of selecting a university last year, I never would have believe you. I simply didn’t have the time or resources to prepare for the TOEFL or SAT exams, which meant it would be difficult for me to attend a top university in China, much less an American university. Coming across NYU Shanghai was like stumbling across my destiny.

来到这里的过程无疑漫长且艰难。去年我经历了选择大学的痛苦过程，如果你在那时候告诉我，我明年就可以成为上海纽约大学的学生，我是绝对不会相信的，因为我实在没有时间和资源来准备考托福或者考SAT。这让我觉得读中国顶级大学希望渺茫，美国大学更加无从谈起。发现上海纽约大学就像突然发现了改变命运的机会。

It was a beautiful day, I was wandering around Dali City when I suddenly caught sight of bright purple backpacks with NYU Shanghai printed across them. I saw that the backpacks belonged to some really cool looking people who must have been in the class of 2017. Since that day, I’ve had this sense in my gut that NYU Shanghai is where I belong. I haven’t considered any other school since then.

那是一个晴朗的日子，我走在大理的路上突然瞥见一些明亮的紫色背包，上面印着“上海纽约大学”六个字。背包的主人们看上去很酷，事后我才知道他们是上海纽约大学的首届学生。从那天起我心里就有了一个目标：考进上海纽约大学。此后，我再也没有考虑过其他大学。

Since getting here, I keep finding out about things that I want to explore, but what I most want to do is to get to know all of the different people who come from around the world. I want to understand the world better through them, and elevate myself to stand among their ranks. The most meaningful thing to me is the act of self-realization, of finding out the truth about what you love to do and doing it. It’s not important what other people are doing, because if you devote yourself to something, there is meaning and respect for yourself and others in that devotion.

来了这里之后，我不断地发现新的想要探索的事物，而我最想做的还是了解这些来自世界各地的同学们。我希望能够通过他们，进一步了解全世界，提升自己，并加入他们。对我来说最有意义的事情就是自我实现和自我发现，发现自己喜欢做的事情然后全力以赴地去做。别人在干什么并不重要，只要我全力以赴去做一件事情，我将在其中获得这份投入的尊严和意义。

Over the next four years, my hope is that I will find that truth about myself, that thing to which I can devote my career and my life. Of course, I am afraid of failure, especially of failing my parents because of their expectations for me in attending such a pioneering school. Sometimes I feel I am under a tremendous amount of pressure, but at these times I try to think about some of the defining moments in my life.

在以后的四年里，我希望找到真实的自我，找到一项事业可以奉献终身。当然我也害怕失败，尤其害怕让我的父母失望。毕竟他们对我考上这样一个开创性的大学抱有极大的期待。有时候觉得压力实在很大， 每当这样的时候，我都以一些人生决定性的时刻来提醒并鼓励自己继续前行。

The first was when I decided to learn English, which opened up a whole new world for me. The second was when I went abroad to Australia and experienced the world I had only glimpsed through English. The third was the moment I found out I had been accepted to NYU Shanghai. All of these life-changing moments came from trying something new, and overcoming fear – this is what I remind myself when I am overwhelmed. 

第一个重要的经历是我决定学英语的时候，学习英语带我进入一个新的世界。第二个重要的经历是去澳大利亚留学，我真正进入了那个以前通过学英语才能遥遥望着的世界。第三个重要的时刻就是当我打开上海纽约大学的录取信的时候。这些重要的经历都源于尝试新的事物以及克服恐惧，当我觉得压力太大的时候，我就会想起这些。
 
NYU Pan-Asia Alumni Conference

纽约大学亚洲校友会议
 
On August 9th, 2014, the inaugural NYU Pan-Asia Alumni Conference kicked off in Taiwan. On that day, over 200 alumni and guests from around the world gathered in Taipei to share their experiences, connect (and re-connect) with fellow NYU alumni, and contribute to the vibrant Pan-Asia alumni community. NYU Shanghai Vice Chancellor Jeff Lehman spoke at the highly successful conference, which featured a variety of business and cultural sessions and panels. With the positive reception from this first conference, NYU Pan-Asia Alumni Association plans to hold next year’s conference here in Shanghai. 

8月9日，第一届纽约大学亚洲校友会议在台湾成功举办。200多名校友和嘉宾在台北分享了各自的经历，与纽约大学的其他校友们联手，共同促进了亚洲校友团体间的活跃氛围。上海纽约大学美方校长雷蒙在会议上发表了演讲。会议组织了各式商务会谈、文化交流及小组论坛。此会议受到多方好评，纽约大学亚洲校友会决定将在上海召开明年的会议。
 
NYU Shanghai Evacuates 15 Students from

Tel Aviv Amid Rising Tensions

上海纽约大学暑假期间成功从以色列转移15名学生



This summer, 15 NYU Shanghai students were attending a month long business entrepreneurship program offered by Tel Aviv University when tensions between Israel and Palestine began heating up. Upon hearing about the escalation in the afternoon of July 10th, NYU faculty and staff in New York, Shanghai, and Tel Aviv sprang into a globally coordinated course of action. Faculty and Staff across three continents worked throughout the weekend to ensure that students were safely evacuated to nearby Istanbul, keeping students and parents informed every step of the way, planning an alternative academic experience, and collaborating with NYU’s insurance company.

今年夏天，15名上海纽约大学的学生在特拉维夫大学参加一个长达一个月的商务创业项目。期间，以色列和巴勒斯坦之间的紧张局势开始升温。纽约大学在上海、纽约、和特拉维夫三地的工作人员和教务人员在7月10日下午得知消息之后，马上开始全球协调行动。位于全球三大洲的工作人员经过一个周末的工作，成功将15名学生安排转移到离以色列较近的伊斯坦布尔， 并且与学生和家长保持实时联系，并策划了替代的学习项目，并与纽约大学的保险公司合作完成后勤工作。

Thanks to NYU’s global network of academic resources, students were introduced to Professor Martin Wein – an NYU Tel Aviv faculty member specializing in comparative culture with an emphasis on Turkey. Professor Wein accompanied the students during the evacuation, and with his breadth of knowledge on the city, was able to give the students a unique perspective on the cross currents between Turkey and Israel. Students attended morning lectures, engaged in site visits in the afternoon, and submitted a paper contrasting the cross-cultural experiences they gained in the two countries. Johnson Huang, an NYU Shanghai club leader and group leader of the 15 students expressed admiration his for the university’s ability to “transform a tense situation into an opportunity to learn, allowing us to truly make the world our major.”

通过纽约大学完善的全球学术资源网络，纽约大学特拉维夫教学点的教授Martin Wein先生带领着学生一起撤离以色列前往伊斯坦布尔。这位教授的重点研究是土耳其文化比较，他给学生们分享了他对伊斯坦布尔的深度了解以及土耳其和以色列之间的观念碰撞。在伊斯坦布尔度过的这段时间里，学生们早上参加讲座，下午实地考察。课程结束后学生们交上了土耳其和以色列经历的跨文化对比论文。上海纽约大学里的学生组织领导、15位学生的领队黄瀚涛表示“大学将一个紧张的事件转换成一次学习机会，让我们真正地把世界作为我们的课堂。“
 
A Conversation with Zhang Zheng, 
Professor of Computer Science
对话上海纽约大学计算机科学教授张峥

Can you tell me a bit about yourself and your background?
请简单介绍一下您自己。

I’m a Shanghainese native. I graduated from Fudan University in 1987, and entered the Master’s program after that. After 1989, I went abroad and studied in Texas for a while and got my PHD at the University of Illinois. I worked in HP labs for five years before I moved back to Beijing. I have been a researcher at Microsoft Research Asia for 12 years, which is longer than the time I’ve been abroad.

我是上海本地人。1987毕业于复旦大学后继续攻读硕士课程。89年之后我去了海外，在德州学习了一段时间。在伊利诺伊大学获得博士学位。我在惠普实验室工作了五年后回到了北京。在微软亚洲研究院当了12年研究员，在中国工作的时间加起来超过了我在海外的时间。


Why have you chosen your field of study?
您为什么选择了您现在的研究领域？

I like to build things. I’m an engineer by nature, although I am quite clumsy. I’m curious about science and its mysteries, for example how intelligence is possible. These puzzles have always intrigued me.

我喜欢创造东西。虽然我有点笨拙，我的本质是工程师，对科学的未解之谜都感到好奇。比如说，为什么智力会存在，这些是我感兴趣的谜题。

When I was very young, I used to build radios. Perhaps people your age don’t have any such experience, and have probably never even seen radios with transistors. I tinkered with them when I was very young at Children’s Palace in Shanghai. I eventually moved onto computers. I remember when I was at Fudan University, my department had 500 students, which is more than the total number of students currently at NYU Shanghai. But there were only two PCs for all of us – two very old PCs. That was around the end of my undergraduate years in 1986, a very long time ago.

我很年轻的时候就开始装配无线收音机。可能你们这个年代的人没有类似的经验，甚至没有见过做晶体管收音机。我在上海少年宫就开始玩这些了，之后慢慢发展到玩电脑。我在复旦的时候，我们整个部门有500多名学生，比现在上海纽约大学的学生人数多，但是我们所有人加起来只有两台很旧的电脑。那是我本科生快要毕业的时候，1986年，很久以前了。

What are your recent research interests?
请描述一下您最近的研究兴趣。

Recently, I have been interesting in “deep learning”, which has a computational format that is very close to the human brain. The brain has neurons, and this computational framework also has neurons. It’s good at recognizing objects and images, and understanding languages. It’s a giant step towards understanding how human intelligence operates.

最近我对“深度学习”很感兴趣，就是一种很接近人类大脑的计算格式。大脑有神经元，这个计算格式也有神经元。它能够辨认物体及画面，能够懂得语言，向理解人类的智力运作方向迈进了一大步。

Human brains have this amazing ability to recognize objects instantly, like “hey, this is a phone” or “this is a pen”. Computers traditionally are pretty weak on these tasks. They’re very good at counting numbers and are much better at solving well-formulated mathematical problems than humans. Human beings are very bad at precise memory and reasoning, but we are good at fuzzy learning.

人类的大脑很容易辨别物体，可以看到东西，马上意识到 “这是电话” 或 “这是一支笔”。一直以来电脑在这个功能上都是比较弱的，电脑很擅长数数、比人类更擅长解决制定的数学问题。人类不擅长精确的记忆和推理，但是很擅长模糊学习。

And conceptual learning?
人类是不是也擅长学习概念？

Yes. We do not know how the brain represents concepts. You and I can talk, and we can understand each other instantly with the help of facial expressions and gestures. This is something very difficult for computers to do today, and this is also one of the things that motivates me, because it is a puzzle. Traditionally, these are two different disciplines. Problems I mentioned would be researched under machine learning, while my discipline has always been building systems. But my passion goes beyond system discipline alone. I used to say that I build systems for science, and I want to find the science of building systems.

是的。我们现在还不了解大脑是怎样构成概念的。你我在对话的时候，看着彼此的表情和手势，很快就能够了解对方想表达什么。而目前对电脑来说，这是一件很困难的事情。这样一个谜题，足以给我研究的动力。传统来说这些问题因该是在机器学习领域里研究的，而建立系统一直以来才是我的领域。但是我感兴趣的东西不单单限制与系统。建立系统是为了科学，但是我也在寻找建立系统的科学。

What do you think are some possible societal impacts that may result from the advent of machines that can learn or perhaps replace people?
您觉得能够学习的机器会如何影响我们的社会？会不会有机器代替人类的时代到来呢？

This semester I’m teaching Introduction to Computer Science, in which this topic is touched a number of times. Let me first introduce a bit about the course. Traditionally, this is a programming course, but I didn’t design it that way. It now has several parallel tracks, including programming and understanding algorithms. But I also want to show my students the broader landscape of computer science and how it came to be. In preparing this course, I learned a lot myself. We will follow the progression of computer science from a seed to an industry.

这个学期我教授的课程是计算机科学导论，这个话题和我的课程有着紧密的关系。让我先介绍一下这个课程吧。一般来说，这个课应该教学生怎么写程序，但是我没有简单地把它设计成这样。我的课上会有几个并行的轨道，这些轨道覆盖了程序和算法，但我也会带领学生们研究超越计算机科学范围的更广泛的领域和发展历史。在准备这门课的过程中我也学到了很多。我们将会跟踪计算机科学史，从计算机科学还只是一颗思想种子的时代跟踪到它形成了如今的产业。

We will also cover the epochs in the evolution of computers where people have been worried about massive job loss from computers. There has always been this debate. From the very beginning, computers have been replacing people at menial tasks. That is a very real fear, but looking back at those menial tasks, no one wants to return to the kind of job where you sit there and count things all day long. 

我们的讨论话题也包括，人们一直以来担忧的电脑时代所导致的大规模失业问题。电脑从开始出现，就在逐步取代着一些琐碎的人工。这个恐惧很现实，但没有人再愿意回到以前那种终日重复的劳动了。

This has always been a fundamental debate, because the flip side is that people are being freed from mechanical tasks to do other things. The trend has continued, but the question is when does it stop? Is there a limit? At the end of my course, I’m going to do something different. We start with history, so we’ll end with a puzzle. A forward-looking question – what is the future going to look like?

一直以来，这是一个根源性的问题。表面看来，人类在被电脑解放，可以空下来做别的事情。这个趋势至今持续着，但问题是，什么时候停下来？有没有极限？因此，在这个学期的课程，我们要从历史开始，以这个探索难题结尾。我会问学生一个前瞻性的问题 – 未来会是怎样的？

We are also going to discuss questions of privacy, once privacy moves beyond revealing personal information online to the revelation of your entire body and soul, when the problem of privacy gets taken to the extreme. We will examine the human relationship to the machine, which is a very deep philosophical question rather than a technical one. One of the things I really want to the students to take away is, “you are the builders of the future. More than making programs and fortunes, you have a lot of responsibility with the tools you have at hand.” I don’t know what that responsibility is going to be, but I want them to start thinking about it. 

我们还会讨论隐私问题，一旦个人隐私从在线曝光个人信息到泄露你整个的身体和灵魂，那就到了将隐私极端化的境地了。我们会探索人与机器的关系，其实这是一个非常深奥的哲学问题而不是技术性的问题。我很希望学生们能够学习到，“你们将会是未来的建设者。除了写程序，除了赚钱，你们有本领在手，更要重大众多的责任在肩”。不知道这个责任具体将会是什么，但我希望他们会开始思考这个责任。

What are some of the ways in which computer science is interacting with the humanities?
如今的电脑科学和人文学科有哪些相互影响？

I have recently been working on the study of bias, and how it influences human recognition of objects. Computers can recognize digits on par with or even better than humans can. However, if you overlay two digits on top of each other, as in, if you write a 2 on top of an 8, the computer can no longer recognize either digit, but humans can. Why is that? It puzzles me. It’s a very simple scientific question. When we see a 2 on top of an 8, we begin to form a hypothesis about the digits. What does this mean? It means when you have an object embedded in a noisy environment, the human mind automatically picks out what parts it wants to see. The philosophical connection to that is “perception is reality” – a common statement that perfectly illustrates what is happening here.

最近我在研究偏置，以及偏置如何影响人类的认知。电脑可以和人类一样识别数目，有时候甚至比人类识别得更准确，但是只要把两个数目叠加在一起、比如把2写在8的上面，电脑就无法辨识这两个数目了，而人类却能够识别。这是为什么呢？我很好奇。这是一个非常简单的科学问题。当我们看到8上面重叠了一个2，人类就会产生出假设。这意味着什么？意味着如果在一个混杂的环境里面隐藏着一个物件，人类的大脑自然而然的拣选出想要看到的物件。哲学上的说法就是“感知就是现实”， 这就是一个能够完美解释此现象的通用语汇。

There is no such thing as a noise-free environment in our lives; everything exists in the context of everything else, therefore the human mind must be able to “de-noise’ its environment, to form a belief that allows it to see part of the picture and ignore the rest. What we have done in this research project was demonstrate neuro-network circuitry that does precisely that I a computer. We were able to tell the computer to assume a hypothesis and remove the noise of the other digit. We demonstrated how this forming of bias can be done through neuro-network circuitry.

生活没有所谓的真空环境，所有的一切都存在于其他一切的背景下。因此，人类的大脑必须有能力”去掉”这些杂音，形成一种能够让它只看到一部分而忽略其他部分的一种信念。现下我参与的研究项目就是通过神经网络电路的构成让电脑也做到这一点。我们能够命令电脑预设一个假设去掉另一个数码“杂音”, 展示了如何通过神经网络电路形成偏置。

Going back to humans. We have biases to guide our daily life; these biases are important to   survival. When you have a high-noise environment, it means there’s no such thing as absolute truth. Data is embedded in noise. What we see and perceive may be biases. That is why we form such deep impressions of people in our daily life. You might have a friend who you like, and the more you like him, the more you form the belief that he is warm-hearted and kind. But you are only seeing one part of him. On the flip side, there are also people you don’t like, of whom you form an instant dislike that may not be based on anything objective. 

回到人类现实，偏置也在指导着我们的日常生活，而且对于我们的生存至关重要。这意味着，在一个非常混杂的环境里不存在有绝对的真理。当信息嵌入在杂音里面，我们所看到的和感受到的可能会是偏置，所以我们才会对日常生活中接触到的人形成那么深刻的印象，诸如，有一个你很喜欢的朋友，你看着他，越看越喜欢，越看越觉得他是一个善良的好人，但是你看到的仅仅是他的一部分。反过来说，也会有一些人你就是不喜欢，从第一眼看到他，你就觉得讨厌，但这种印象可能完全没有客观的依据。

This is something most people know by heart, and this is psychology, but psychology will remain a pseudoscience unless we are able to somehow quantify and predict effects. This is just a small instance of how research in computer science is beginning to connect back to high-level humanities subjects like philosophy and psychology.

对多数人来说这些是他们心里知道的常识，也是心理学的一部分。但是如果心理学没有办法做出量化和预测，那么心理学终究是伪科学。这只是电脑科学开始与哲学和心理学联系结合所构成的高层次人文学科的一个小小实例。

What are some of the greatest challenges facing the field of computer science?
电脑科学面对着哪些重大挑战？

One of my research interests is adapting technology to the diagnosis of cancer. There are some challenges in doing this, even though it is within the range of computer science. If we have sufficient data, we might be able to diagnose cancers much more effectively, but all of this hinges on whether you will be able to get the data. This is private patient data, but unless we get this data in massive amounts, we can’t create any models or do anything interesting. That’s one of the biggest challenges facing the field – access to data.

我的研究旨趣之一是科技如何帮助癌症的诊断。尽管在电脑科学的领域，依然存在相当的挑战。如果掌握充分的数据，诊断癌症将更有效，但是所有的一切都取决于你能否得到这些信息。这是病人的隐私，但是我们需要大量的信息，没有信息就没有办法做出有意义的范例。这是这个领域所面对的最大的挑战之一，获取数据的挑战。

Advancing technology is about much more than money, data is essential. We have to find a way to access data to benefit technology and society as a whole, but maintain the privacy of the individual and navigate the pitfalls that can come with the use of private information. This is an eternally difficult challenge.

推经技术不只是资金问题，信息是根本的。我们必须获取这些信息而有力与科技和整体的社会，但是任然要维护个人隐私避免踏入利用个人隐私可能会出现的陷阱。

You have been doing research for a long time, how would you compare the environment now to when you began?
您做研究已经做了很久了，相对您开始做研究的时候现下的环境比较起来怎么样？

I started doing serious research 20 years ago in Illinois. The one thing that I can say for sure is that things are evolving much faster. A good friend of mine from MIT often says “technological evolution is happening exponentially”. Any discovery we make has its application in the tools, which makes our tools more powerful, which then accelerates discoveries. That’s why things have been happening so much faster recently.

我在伊利诺伊州二十年前开始做研究。我能肯定的一点就是一切都在进展的更加迅速了。我在MIT的一位好友总是说，”技术正在成倍的演变“。我们做的每一个发明都能够在道具上得到应用，应用了之后我们的道具的威力更大促进这新发明。所以最近感觉一切发展都更迅速。

Then, there are the aspects of doing research that will never change. You must always understand the problem and its context. You must always think of ways to innovate, demonstrate, and quantify your research. These things will never change, they just took longer in the past. Mendel was working on genetics for eight years. Darwin took 30 years to form his theory of evolution.

当然做研究的有些因素永远不会改变的。你必须懂得你想解决的问题和它的背景。你必须想办法创新、演示、量化你所研究的。这些永远不会变的只是过去要在上面花的时间更多。孟德尔在遗传学上面花了8年，达尔文花了30年才形成进化论。

Research happens a lot faster nowadays, but of course there is a lot more noise to distract you. There’s a whole ecosystem through which you have to filter out and find the right piece of research to learn and to inspire you, and that ecosystem is getting more complex all the time.

如今的研究发生的越来越迅速但是环境也更加混杂了。我们的研究生存在一个整体的生态系统里面，你必须懂得怎么把海量的信息有效的过滤之后找到一个可以学习并可以促进灵感的研究项目。这个生态系统越来越复杂。

I would say there are many more distractions for students. A number of the brightest students don’t go to graduate school and end up on Wall Street for instance. 

现在的学生们会被更多事情分心。很多最有才华的学生都不去读研，很多都去例如华尔街这种地方。

What would you tell those students who are thinking of going to Wall Street? 
您会如何开导那些正在考虑去华尔街的学生们？

Well, first of all I would tell them that if they are really clever and hardworking, then it’s better to stay in this field because there’s more innovation here, and there’s a much bigger financial upside to it too. And you get to have an impact on society. To paraphrase Steve Jobs, “Do you want to sell sugar water or change the world?” It’s the same thing, “Do you want to count money, or do you want to change the world?” If students decide to go, they go with all my blessings, but I want them to remember that they still have a responsibility because of the tool set they have acquired. Also, they can come back to study at any time.

第一，我会告诉他们如果他们真的很聪明很用功这个领域不但会给他们带来创新上的受益也会给他们带来经济上的回报。他们不但能够得到经济上的回报也能够对社会有影响。套用乔布斯的话，” 你想卖一辈子糖水还是改变世界?”, 一样的，”你想数一辈子钱还是改变世界？” 如果学生们决定去华尔街，我会祝福他们，但是我希望他们会记得他们得到了这些工具之后得职责。他们随时都能回来学习研究。

Is that part of the reason you've come back to China?
这是不是您回来中国的原因？

I've come back to China for different reasons. I’m native Shanghainese. My roots are here. I need to take care of my family. Fundamentally, this is my country.
我有很多原因回到中国。我是上海本地人，我的根扎在这儿。我需要照顾我的家人。从根本上说，这是我的国家。

I didn't think about becoming a professor when I first came back to China, but in my job I found myself passing on my knowledge to my interns and staff. I've had over 30 students from the best institutions passing through Microsoft in my time there. I wasn't teaching in a classroom, I taught while doing research together. In many ways, when you do research, you’re a teacher and a student. You’re learning the technology and solving the problems together.

其实我刚回来的时候没有想过当教授，但在我的工作上我经常给我负责的实习生和工作人员传达一些知识。在微软的时候我负责引导了超过30位来自最好的机构的学生。那时不在教室里面授课而是通过研究来教他们。做研究的时候很多时候我自己即使导师也是学生。跟他们一起学习新技术一起解决问题。

Here, teaching will be different. I think this is a really neat context. The new building is progressing really well, but what defines a school is not the building, the people. I look forward to talking to the students, and finding out more about them. I want to inspire them and lead them in a style of research that will help the field to evolve. What are the problems and what are the cool ideas that might solve these problems? What new problems do these ideas generate? I’m going to try to use a different style of teaching. I could have chosen an easier way to teach the course, but I’ve decided to go the harder way. My hope is that it will be more rewarding.

在这里教书因该有所不同。这是一个非常有趣的环境。新教学楼进展的很好，但是一个学校不是它的教学楼而是在里面的人。我很期待跟学生们聊天，知道他们更多的事情。我希望能够激励他们帮他们获取一种可以帮助这个领域发展的研究风格。发现他们感兴趣那些问题，探索解决这些问题的方式，探索这个解决方式所造成的新问题。我会尝试一个不同的教学风格。其实可以选择一个更简单的教学方式，但是我选择了更复杂的，希望这将是更有收获的方式。

When your students leave your class, what are you are hoping they will take away?
当学生们走出您的课堂，您希望他们会带走什么？

Oh, I want them to think that computer science is cool.
哦，希望他们觉得电脑科学很酷。

In my lectures, I want to show them the interesting disciplines and interactions that have been taking place, the whole wide range of exciting and interesting developments. I want them to see how cool computer science is, and find an element that they would like to devote their careers to. Also, very importantly, I want to show them that computer science doesn’t stand alone, that it has a larger context within society.

在我的讲堂上我会让他们看到最近一些有趣的学科和学科之间的互动，一些令人兴奋和有趣的发展。我希望他们会看到电脑科学有多么的有趣，希望他们能找到一个想投入自己的事业的元素。还有很重要的是我希望他们会意识到电脑科学不是独立的领域，它是社会的一部分。

If they end up understanding these things and choosing computer science, I will be happy, but if they don’t, I hope that they will leave my class free of the bias that I was talking about. I want them to know that computer science is not just for geeks. It’s much more than that. That’s the kind of bias I want to remove. I also want to see them develop a sense of passion and responsibility. 

如果他们理解了这些然后选择了电脑科学我会很欣慰，但是如果他们没有理解这些我还是希望他们离开我的课堂后不会对电脑科学有任何偏见。就是我刚刚提起的偏见。我希望他们知道电脑科学不是一个吊死专属的专业。它其实很深奥。这是我想去掉的偏见。我还想看到他们培养一种热情和责任感。    
 

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