Today one of my students, Zhu Wang, successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation. The research itself is brilliant, and his presentation of it was flawless.
The meeting was slightly odd, as meetings are these days, because it was held on-line via Zoom. But that didn’t take away anything from his accomplishment or the clarity of his ideas.
These moments, when somebody goes from being a student to having their Ph.D., are very large. It’s the moment when somebody gets their license to conduct their own independent research, whether as head of an academic research lab or of a corporate team.
I love this process — even though it can be a long and arduous process — because it helps really talented and hard working people to become even better at what they do. And then they can go off and help make the world a better place.