Old Divisions and New Realms: Physics Across Borders
Dr. Yangyang Cheng
Yale Law School Paul Tsai China Center
Hybrid: In-person at Physics Research Building Room 1080 and virtual (link below)
Faculty Host: Nandini Trivedi
Abstract: This February, the Justice Department announced an end to the “China Initiative,” a controversial counter-espionage program that has disproportionately targeted scientists of Chinese descent in the US. In the meantime, Washington has doubled down on technological competition with China, echoing its counterparts in Beijing. Since the waning days of the Qing empire, scientists from both countries have played an important role in facilitating US-China relations, while the cosmopolitan ideals of science are constantly challenged by material constraints and national interests. In a world fractured by nations, races, and governing systems, can science transcend political borders? This talk will review the history of collaboration and exchange among physicists from China and the US, discuss current controversies, and explore potential paths forward.
Bio: Yangyang Cheng is a fellow and research scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, where her work focuses on the development of science and technology in China and US‒China relations. Her essays on these and related topics have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, WIRED, MIT Technology Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and many other publications. She is a columnist at SupChina and a contributing columnist at Physics World. Born and raised in China, Cheng received her PhD in physics from the University of Chicago and her bachelor’s from the University of Science and Technology of China’s School for the Gifted Young. Before joining Yale, she worked on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for over a decade, most recently at Cornell University and as an LHC Physics Center Distinguished Researcher at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
Please use the Zoom link below to attend virtually:
https://osu.zoom.us/j/94858307115?pwd=K0JDMTROWVhIOUp6bU1sU0prZjNUZz09
Meeting ID: 948 5830 7115
Password: PRB1080
