‘Be Brave and Proactive’: Dr Lai Ka-ying Offers Advice for Students

HKU alumna Dr Lai Ka-ying and the Shenzhou-23 crew successfully conducted a live class from aboard China’s Tiangong Space Station on Wednesday, encouraging students in Hong Kong, Macau, and elsewhere to build strong foundations and seize opportunities to advance scientific research.

In a livecast “Tiangong Class”, which also featured fellow Shenzhou-23 crew Dr Zhu Yangzhu and Zhang Zhiyuan, the astronauts served as “space teachers”, showing viewers what life aboard the station is like, demonstrating experiments, and engaging in a rare “dialogue between space and Earth.”

In addition to the stream from the space station, the event also included lectures from local aerospace experts, including HKU’s Professor Yao Zhonghua, who shared insights from his own research on Jupiter with the public.

In honour of Dr Lai’s achievements, the University organised a live viewing event for the Tiangong Class at Sun Yat-sen Place (Happy Park).

Dr Lai, Hong Kong’s first payload expert, graduated from HKU with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Information Systems, MPhil, and PhD (Computer Science) degrees.

“My education background, research and development experience, and my career have laid critical foundations for me to seize this opportunity,” Dr Lai said in response to a question from a fourth-year HKU student. “I hope students can constantly equip themselves and be brave and proactive as opportunities come along.”

She also advised students to expose themselves to different subjects, especially math, science, and languages.

Dr Lai lifted off aboard the Shenzhou-23 mission in May. While in space, she and the rest of the mission’s crew have been tasked with carrying out more than 100 scientific and applications projects in life sciences, materials science, fluid physics and medicine.