In Other News

• Professor of Computer Science Zhang Zheng is helping Amazon guide its deep learning strategy with MXNet, an open-source deep learning framework he co-founded with developers from top global universities. Some of NYU Shanghai’s leading CS students contributed to the follow-up project MinPy, soon to be in its beta mode. Read more.

• Food for thought: Students from this year’s Foundation of Science (FoS) Biology Lab, taught by Professor Wenshu Li, shared the findings from their GMO tests on local produce on December 8. Their results showed corn and tomatoes from NYU Shanghai’s canteen to be GM-free, but cautioned that papaya from the local store was found guilty of genetic modification.

• On December 10, Michele Geraci, Adjunct Professor of Finance at NYU Shanghai, was formally awarded the Cavaliere knighthood by the Italian Ambassador at a reception in Beijing, also attended by Italian President Matterella. Geraci later gave a talk in Shanghai on “China Economy in Trump’s Era,” at an event organized by the Italian Chamber of Commerce.

• And the Center for Global Asia's Silk Road Lecture Series came to a close on December 12 with Tamara Chin, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature from Brown University, giving a short history of the Silk Road Idea. Her talk focused on the Cold War period, when China’s diplomacy with the newly decolonized world reimagined an Afro-Asian Silk Road that was at odds with the Silk Road of the West and Japan.