Li Kunpeng, IAS Assistant Professor
Researcher’s Profile
・Li Kunpeng, IAS Assistant Professor at Green Hydrogen Research Lab, Advanced Chemical Energy Research Center
・Research Interest : Electrolytic technologies and fuel cells
Assistant professor Li came to Japan as a foreign student in 2014 after obtaining a master’s degree at China’s Shandong University. After studying at a Japanese language school and gaining experience in the language and in research at the University of Tokyo, Li entered YNU’s doctoral program in the field of mechanics in 2017 and earned a doctorate in 2021. He has been an assistant professor at YNU’s Institute of Advanced Sciences (IAS) since then, working as a researcher in the Green Hydrogen Research Lab, Advanced Chemical Energy Research Center.
Until his master’s degree studies, assistant professor Li focused on research in mechanical vibrations. In the 2010s, study abroad was a popular choice in China, and he decided to study in a foreign academic environment. He chose to proceed to a doctoral program at a Japanese university with a strong international reputation in mechanical engineering, applying to Mechanical Engineering Program, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Yokohama National University. While studying there he was also exposed to the new energy field and delved into research into fuel cells, later changing his research subject to that area. We are now in a transition period from fossil fuel energy to new energy, and assistant professor Li hopes to contribute to the development of new energy through his research at IAS.
What do you think about the research environment at IAS and the atmosphere there?
At the lab, we’re encouraged to actively voice our opinions, and even if we’re wrong, we’re never criticized or rebutted. The principal investigator (PI) welcomes out-of-the-box ideas. It’s the overlooked or unexpected ideas that are the first step to new research, and many important discoveries have been made that way. That’s why the atmosphere at my lab is relaxed; everyone actively presents their ideas, and we’re encouraged to adopt a diversity of viewpoints. I’d like to adopt this kind of lab culture when I set up my own lab in the future.
What are you looking forward to now, as far as your life in Japan is concerned?
There’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: travel all over Japan without any elaborate planning. I used to enjoy bicycling to places I’d never been to, and now I have a motorbike, so my dream is to travel all over Japan by motorbike.
I want to travel, first because Japan has such beautiful scenery. Another reason is that I love unplanned travel. It’s really thrilling to go someplace I’ve never been and suddenly see a beautiful panorama unfolding in front of me, or encountering roads atop steep cliffs, and so forth.
This feeling is very similar to my research activities, where I experience the satisfaction of discovering something that no one else has found yet, or finding something that may be an experiment that someone else has already done but that seems new to me.
Out of a perfect score of 100, how would you rate your life so far?
I give satisfaction with my current work a rating of 90 out of 100. But as far as satisfaction with life goals is concerned, my score is around 30 or 40. For example, when building an aircraft carrier, satisfaction with building it is 90, but as an overall goal, the aircraft carrier is only partially built, so the score is only 30 or 40.
Overall, I give my life a rating of 60 or 70 so far.
Please tell me about your future goals in life
My goal as a researcher is to use my knowledge to develop practical products that will be useful to society.
In terms of education, I want to set up a lab where students can freely discuss their ideas without having to worry about being criticized or disagreed with even if they’re wrong. I’ve worked in many different labs so far and have been exposed to different lab cultures. If I had not come to this lab, I suppose I would have aimed to become a strict, old-fashioned kind of investigator. But I want to carry on the culture of this lab and become an investigator that everyone can feel comfortable about consulting. I want to tell the world that it’s possible to conduct scientific research even in a relaxed atmosphere.
My goals in terms of contributing to the community are to put into practice what I have learned and help farming areas revitalize and grow. Straw and other organic materials from grain are everywhere in farming areas. That’s a resource that transformed into coal over millennia and that has the potential to be an energy source together with abundant energy from the sun. Combining these energy sources efficiently would allow farming areas to become energy self-sufficient and reduce energy lost during intermediate transmission. I’d like to contribute to making this possible.
My goal for relations between Japan and China is to work as hard as I can to help Japanese people learn more about China. Thanks to anime and other aspects of Japanese culture, the number of Chinese coming to Japan to study is growing all the time, and familiarity with Japan is increasing. Meanwhile, I think that there are many more opportunities for Japanese to be exposed more deeply to China. To promote more friendly exchanges between our two countries, I want to contribute to help the Japanese learn more about China. I’ve actually already started doing this; since starting to work at this lab, I’ve used the opportunity to talk about developments in China at our weekly meetings. That way, I hope that my colleagues will gradually develop an interest in China, so I want to create opportunities where they will feel like learning more. I encourage them to also actually travel to China. A while ago, a colleague from my lab was planning a trip to Europe, and I suggested that he fly through Shanghai. Although he was only in Shanghai for a matter of hours, I’ve heard that he had the opportunity to experience the atmosphere and really enjoyed his stopover. That gave me a feeling of satisfaction that my modest efforts to promote friendship between our two countries had borne fruit. I hope activities like this will help Japan and China understand each other better, and I want to help the two countries deepen ties of friendship.