Imperial alumni and friends in Taipei came together for a reception with President Alice Gast.

Introducing President Gast, Professor Winston Wong said, “When I was at Imperial I never dreamed that one day the President would be visiting us. I have strong emotional ties to Imperial – there were hardly any students from Taiwan when I was studying.” There are now over 550 alumni in Taiwan, with around 80 students a year going to the College, and Professor Wong said, “It is important for us to be a cohesive community together.”

He went on to welcome President Gast to the podium, saying, “The head of Imperial has always been a British man. Now we have an outstanding woman from the United States. I have spoken to President Gast – she has a strong vision for the College and we are privileged to have her as our President.”

President Gast thanked Professor Winston Wong for hosting the reception and for being so welcoming. She complimented Winston on being such an inspiration to others, having obtained three degrees from Imperial, across Physics and Chemical Engineering, and having gone on to forge such a successful career. She also thanked Dr Ivan Liu, (MSci Physics 2003), for his leadership of the Imperial College Alumni Association of Taiwan (ICAAT) and recognised the presence of James Pon-Wei Hou (PhD Physics 1974), whose time at the College would have overlapped with Winston Wong.

President Gast then shared news and developments from the College; “You know that Imperial has great rigour and depth. We experience the excitement of research breakthroughs every day. We constantly foray into new areas and bring that into the classroom.” She noted that the College was being responsive to emerging opportunities; “We are developing new Master’s for people who are increasingly keen to expand their knowledge to new areas. Two outstanding examples are the Global Innovation Design and Climate Change, Management and Finance courses.”

Talking about the important role that universities play in helping humanity address changes and challenges, President Gast noted that Imperial’s strategy challenges it to “take risks and go into new areas.” She highlighted the fundamental strength of Imperial in being able to bring “cross disciplinary research and approaches to tackle some of the worldwide challenges such as anti-microbial resistance.”

The new White City Campus includes flagship buildings including the Innovation Hub, the Molecular Sciences Research Hub and the Michael Uren Biomedical Engineering Research Hub. President Gast said, “White City provides us with exciting opportunities to bring together researchers across different disciplines and bring a multi-disciplinary approach to solve global health and other challenges.”

A vibrant alumni community

Under the leadership of Ivan Liu, a group came together four years ago to develop activities and recently registered as an official association. Ivan and his team played a central role in making the alumni and friends reception with President Gast a success.

He noted that, “President Gast's reception was a rare occasion to bring together Imperial alumni from all over the country. The gathering showed a strong unity and pride towards being Imperial alumni. It was valuable to meet the President and to get to know more about what developments are taking place, including potential collaborations and ongoing involvement between the College and alumni who are now working in all kinds of sectors.”

We also asked Ivan about his fondest memories of studying at the College. He said, “Student society events and weekend nights at the Student Union are perhaps the fondest memories. The energy of Imperial students can be found nowhere else! During my studies I joined the Art Club, the Photography Club, the Rock and Jazz Club and the Taiwanese Society.”

Ivan also shared what he is up to now saying, “Though I majored in Physics at Imperial and obtained a Physics PhD later on in Germany, I have become a new media artist. I am now heading a new media art company based in Taipei. The training and experience I gained while studying at the College was tremendous. Not only was I trained to master scientific concepts and technology, I was exposed to working environments that required a lot of interdisciplinary collaboration. There was also the Business Idea challenge, which we won. So it was stimulating not only in the field I was studying, but also on the business aspect and the soft skills one finds necessary working in the real world.”

Lifelong connections

Richard Lin (Mechanical Engineering 1999) and 

Connie Chien (Biology 2001)