Our Student at the Royal Welcome of Chinese President

I was delighted to learn that my PhD student Xinyan Huang attended the Royal Welcome and Honour Guard Inspection held by Queen Elizabeth II for the Chinese President Xi Jinping. This is a traditional ceremonial welcome to foreign leaders visiting the UK. It took place last Tuesday near Buckingham Palace with the presence of senior royal family members and political leaders.

Xinyan was invited by Lord Chamberlain. There were 80 guests, 40 Chinese and 40 British. He was invited as one of three students representing the 150,000 Chinese students in UK. An important factor for being chosen for the honor is that Xinyan was the only student from Imperial College winning the 2014 National Award for Outstanding Chinese Student Studying Abroad given annually worldwide by the China Scholarship Council.

 
Xinhua media describes it like this: "With 41 rounds of gun salute fired from Green Park and 62 from the Tower of London, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, bathed in rare London sunshine, formally welcomed Xi and Peng at the Royal pavilion on Horse Guards Parade".

Xinyan on the guest stage with the Honour Guard in the back.

Note: Xinyan is graduating from Imperial College soon and joins the University of California at Berkeley as a postdoc in the laboratory of Prof Fernandez-Pello.