Prospective Students

Welcome to this page! I'm always looking for self-motivated and rational students to work with as PhDs, RAs, and interns. Please email me if you are interested. If you are at HKUST, you can also come to my office (Rm 2441) to talk with me. But how to reach out to professors effectively? I received many emails everyday – some of them attract my attention immediately and some of them are just ignored. Please read the following part carefully.

How to write a CV?

Your CV should at least include the following information. You will be asked anyway so do not hide it back.

  • Research/project experiences (publications).

    • This is the most important things that I will look at. Usually you need to have a network/system background if you want to apply for a PhD with me.

    • You also need to clearly identify what is your role in the experiences.

    • If you have no research experiences before, you can still apply for the program. But in that case, you need to be exceptionally outstanding in other aspects.

  • GPA and rankings of your GPA.

    • This demonstrates your academic performance. It's okay if you're not the top. But it should not be too bad.

    • Different universities have different distributions on GPA. So I need to know your ranking.

  • Awards

    • For example, National Scholarship. I understand some universities have higher honors than this (e.g., December 9th, May 4th, Guo Moruo).

  • Names of your referees and his/her contact information.

    • Knowing who will write letters for you is also very important.

  • Grades of your top courses and network-related courses (e.g., computer networks)

    • This shows what your strengths are. You will work on network for a while, so I need to see if you are good at it or not.

How to demonstrate your interest in me?

Take a look at my research statement (it's only 3 pages!) and come up with a research problem that you want to work on in the email. Your research question should elaborate the following three questions:

  • (Motivation) Why it’s important? Why do we need to focus on this?

  • (Challenge) Why it’s challenging? Why other people are not able to solve this?

  • (Timeliness) Why you believe now it's the right time to solve this? How?