First PhD Double Degrees Awarded

In June, the first two SDC PhDs from UCAS obtained Danish double degrees. Sha Sun and Zhou Hao both took their Master’s degree at SDC and afterwards pursued a PhD degree at the Institute of Biophysics, CAS. While Sha Sun cooperated with the Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Zhou Hao cooperated with the Department of Clinical Medicine, both Aarhus University.

Sha Sun later took up a postdoc position at Soochow University, and she believes the double degree from UCAS and Aarhus University improves her competitiveness.

‘I like the educational pattern at SDC so I applied for the PhD double degree to expand my knowledge and experience different research environments and perspectives’, Sha Sun says.

Zhou Hao pursues an international career, and he will take up a position at NeuroSpin, a French research centre for the innovation of brain imaging. The research project focuses on consciousness, and Zhou Hao was attracted to the project due to the extensive collaboration with institutions such as Yale, Harvard, Peking, Birmingham, a Max Planck Institute, Donders Center etc.

As a researcher in the early stage of his career, Zhou Hao finds it important with a broad perspective and indicates that his PhD studies opened his eyes to international collaboration.

‘I have co-published a paper with my Danish supervisor. Moreover, my Chinese supervisor recommended me to contact researchers at NeuroSpin. I am sure it will be a great advantage for me in my career that I know international, frontier researchers within the field of consciousness’, says Zhou Hao.