 Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. My name is Leanne Marley, and I work as lecturer at the University of Johannesburg. I'm also the international lead for the YWP South African chapter, and part of the emerging water leaders career-building troop, which is why we are here. Today marks our very first interview for Forte Friday, and we are so pleased to welcome you to the first day of this exciting initiative. Without further ado, I would like to introduce to you our first guest, Yujie Lu. Yujie Lu is a professor at Xi Yang University in China, and is very passionate about the technical side of wastewater treatment and reuse. I'm sure you are as excited as I am to learn more about this young, passionate, and ambitious professional. Welcome, Yujie. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to join us. I'll shoot straight to the questions. So working in academia at such an early age, please share a little bit about how this happened. I did my bachelor's in China in environmental engineering, where I started to be interested in water-related technologies and the science. So I did my PhD in the United States. I graduated from Columbia University with a degree, PhD degree in environmental engineering, and my doctoral thesis is about a biological process targeting the nitrogen pollutant in wastewater, which is called denitrification process. From there, that really, I'm very fascinated about how a human can manipulate bacteria or design a wastewater treatment plants that can help protect our water environment. Then from there, I decided after my graduation from Columbia University, I decided to stay in academia, and I moved to another university for postdoc. And during that two-year postdoc, I also went to Saudi Arabia for a short period of working in the water recycle center there. And then I started to learn about water recycle and reuse by membrane process. Then that's a typical pathway for someone who wants to work in academia. And then in 2006, 2014, I received an offer from University of Vermont in northeast of the United States. I work in the civil and environmental engineering department for two years as an assistant professor. And then 2016, I moved back to China joining the junior university. So I have been working here for almost six years. So far, I have been very interested and I still feel passionate about the research I'm doing. So that's the, that's my career path so far. I don't know if I really joined at an early age, but I can see that I followed a typical path for a professor, for a junior professor. And I still on my way to get tenured. I don't know if you know this process, but in China, we're gradually using this similar career path as the United States and assistant professor to associate professor and professor. So I'm on my way to get tenured. So so far, that's how my career academia works. That is so interesting. And it was exactly the same in South Africa as well. So assistant and then, well, from associate professor to professor. So very, very interesting. And you moved around quite a bit, which is also so, so interesting. Yeah, I graduated and then I did my two postdocs for three years, assistant professor for two years, associate professor for five years now. Wow, wow. I think I'm so inspiring as well. So if you could give your younger self any advice with regards to the water industry, would you, what would you say, what would you do? The first suggestion to myself, to my younger self would be spend one or two years working in an engineering consulting company or a water company. I think that will give you unique experience that will benefit your research in the long run. So that's the first advice. So the second advice is to read more books in other disciplinaries. You know, water research is an interdisciplinary subject. So if you read more about biology, chemistry, automatic control, or even artificial intelligence that can broaden your horizon and enrich your knowledge. I think it's very important for someone working in academia because you have to keep thinking critically and learn your knowledge in a very quick pace. So that would be the two pieces of advice I would give my younger self. Very, very interesting. I totally share your sentiments. I think we have to work harder to get this, you know, bridge between academia and industry solidified more because that's where the magic is happening, the bridge between the two. And I think we forget about it and then we start making up questions in the lab. So I totally, totally agree with you. Thank you for sharing. So in terms of international education opportunities, like you said, you traveled quite a bit or staying in the homeland. So you traveled and then you came back to China. What are the trends you've been observing amongst your own students in China? Are they going elsewhere and then coming home or staying home? I would say I went abroad in about 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago. So things have changed a lot. Nowadays I've seen more and more students including my students who decided to stay in China and doing their graduate school in China and start their career in China. So I will say this trends I've been observing so far is more students staying in China rather than going abroad. So why is this apparent because of the COVID pandemic and also because of the political reasons and also why important reason I think for them is the change or economic growth of China in recent years. Makes a lot of sense. I've seen also in my own university, they are initiating more collaborations with universities in China and even going as far as developing research centers with universities in China. So I see where you are coming from and I totally agree. Definitely more research is being led from that side of the world. So very, very interesting. And I'm glad that you have more students staying that side as well and increasing research outputs and collaborations with outside instead of coming back. So recently you've moderated one of the EWL virtual forum sessions and I just wanted to find out if you have maybe one or two or three tips for any young water professional who would like to get involved into this moderating online sessions. Well, that is a very good experience for me and it's actually my first experience is holding a session as a moderator. That is the first advice I would give young water professionals who want to get into moderating online sessions is to practice. So practice makes perfect. Everybody knows that, but spend some time, think about this session, take it seriously. So I know a lot of people having the experience of holding online sessions, but for young water professionals, your experience will be limited. So ask the second advice is to ask for suggestions from experienced friends. Record your rehearsal, rehearsed sessions and then maybe send one friend, ask him or her, if you are the participant, what do you see the pros and cons of this or the advantages of strength and the weakness as a moderator for this session. So the third tip is to be proactive. You know, the online session is scheduled in two weeks, the two weeks from now and I can prepare maybe one or two days earlier than I think that's too late. So be proactive, start early because a lot of things can happen. Your speakers may be not available on a scheduled session and you have to switch to another speaker or you yourself will be busy in around these days and you have very limited time to prepare for your session when the deadline approaches. So be proactive. So these are the three tips I would give. That is amazing advice. I think we can even put it into any other area of our lives to be proactive and practice makes perfect. I think that's something that we should all take from this. So what do you think are the largest obstacles for women joining academia, especially in your field? In recent years, I've seen more and more women professors join our field. Well, actually starting from my PhD, I noticed that a lot of my friends in the same field as I do and they're doing PhD are women students. So from that point, I started notice that we can do as good as male scientists or engineers in the field or even better, but in terms of obstacles or limitations, I definitely agree that when we are at the age, especially after PhD study, you are at the age to start your family, get married, have your kids. So time management and work-life balance would be a relatively bigger challenge for women than the men. For myself, I have a son, two years old, and during the past two years, I had to spend at least one half of my spare time on him. And then that means I cannot work the whole two days of during the weekend, I have to spend some time with my kid, and even in the evening, I usually play with my kid, I then go back to the office, work for a while, two hours after he sleeps. That did not, at least did not happen for my husband. He can come back very late. Sometimes I think maybe not only in our culture, in a lot of countries, in a lot of cultures, people have higher expectations for women to dedicate to their family and the kids. I think time management and work-life balance is the biggest challenge or obstacle for women. But I've seen very successful women scientists and engineers in our field. I think there are role models. We should ask them for suggestions. I think that's my answer. Yeah, that's a very good answer. I think I agree with you so much because the work-life balance is something that we often struggle with because it doesn't change the metrics. We're still being measured the same way as our male peers would be measured. And no one really takes into consideration the fact that more is required from us at home as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister. So it's something that I've also spoken about a lot. The work-life balance is something that is a big obstacle. And you're right, there are many successful women. They should be our role models. But I think all of us are role models to someone because we are all doing something that someone else has, well, I wish that could be me. So amazing answer. I agree with you 100%. On a little bit of a lighter note, even though I enjoyed the first few questions so much, thank you for sharing the insights with us. I would like to get into the fun side of things by first asking you, how would your friends describe you? Overall, you go in person and a responsible person. And my last question, what's your favorite family tradition? We have a lot of family tradition in our culture. Bring my kid, my son to see his grandparents on a specific day during each month. And we spend time with them. And also they will, my father and his grandfather will write some letters to him. So each month he will write something, I mean, attach a picture and give that small letter to my son. And after many years, he will have this collection of many letters that I think is a passage of family tradition. Through the different generations. So that, I think that's one of our family traditions. Well, that's so cute and such a nice way of bonding. Thank you so much. We have come to the end of our interview. Thank you so much for sharing, giving us some insights into your professional, a little bit of the personal life as well. I really appreciated the time that you spent with us today. And thank you for being our first interviewer. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Jay.