Chan Tin Ping, born in 2000 in Malaysia, studied at Chong Hwa Independent High School—one of the country’s top secondary schools. In 2019, he entered the School of Physics and Astronomy at SJTU as a Physics (International Class) major. As a fourth-generation Malaysian of Chinese descent, he was drawn to China’s growing global influence and chose SJTU for its top national ranking. In his undergraduate years, he developed an interest in computer science, leading him to pursue a master’s degree in the School of Computer Science at SJTU. He is now a member of Professor Xiaofeng Gao’s DCE (Data Communication and Engineering) team, continuing his academic journey.
In 2021, supported by SJTU’s strong extracurricular programs—particularly a training camp for the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) led by Professor Gao—he earned an Honorable Mention in MCM. Besides that, his strong interest in mathematics led to reaching the finals of the Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition for three consecutive years (2022–2024). In physics, several of his professors were from SJTU’s Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, whose leaders include Nobel Prize winners Frank Anthony Wilczek (2004) and Tsung-Dao Lee (1957). His deep admiration for the university’s rich academic tradition, combined with a habit of exploring every concept to its roots, led to his graduating first in class.
In 2022, he applied for the TV show Super Brain (最强大脑) and was selected for the 2023 season. The filming took him to Nanjing several times, where he met many interesting people and eventually made it into the Top 14. What made him even happier was seeing support on Weibo and YouTube after his elimination—some students even recognized him at SJTU!
During his master’s studies, as part of SJTU’s close collaborations with industry, he spent a year and a half on a Huawei cloud services project. This experience deepened his expertise, leading to three related research papers, one first-authored and two co-authored. The first-author work (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11044446) accepted by INFOCOM 2025 (IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications) —a CCF-A (China Computer Federation) conference representing the highest tier in computer networking. This experience also helped him and DCE teammates win the First Prize in the 2nd “CCF Computing Power Network Systems and Applications Competition.”
Looking back, his journey has taken many turns—from Malaysia to Shanghai, from physics to computer science, from TV appearances to academic publishing. At every stage, SJTU encouraged him to explore possibilities and keep moving forward.
Editor on Duty: Tao Qingxiao