Since its launch in 1998, Tsinghua University's "Good Teachers and Helpful Friends" activity has been the 17th session. The activities are voted by most graduate students to select graduate supervisors who are also teachers and friends in daily life, to transmit the positivity of the relationship between graduate student and supervisor. Among them, Prof. Luo Yong, Prof. Lin Yanluan and Prof. Lu Hui from DESS, were elected as “Good Teachers and Helpful Friends " of Tsinghua University for the 14th, 15th and 16th sessions respectively. This year, Prof. Yang Kun was selected as the 17th” Good Teachers and Helpful Friends" of Tsinghua University.

Devoted to academic research and guide students to learn

Prof. Yang loves scientific research from the inside. At the same time, he also strives to guide students to devote themselves to learning, training

 students to become talents. As an expert who has devoted himself to the hydrometeorological research of the Tibet Plateau for a long time, Prof. Yang leads students to the Tibet Plateau for field research almost every year. Every new graduate student will receive a warm invitation from Prof. Yang to go to the Tibet Plateau together. During each scientific examination, he not only personally did the field work, but also explained the natural phenomena encountered in the scientific examination, including meteorological, geographical and geomorphological knowledge, encouraging students to find problems and actively explore.

Scientific Field Research on Tibet Plateau

Preaching and teaching, educating people as the foundation for a Teacher

“Being a teacher with profound knowledge, teaching and educating people” is the most pertinent evaluation of Prof. Yang. He once said, “Students are my best work.” Although always busy with projects and meetings, he always put the identification of “supervisor” as the first. Prof. Yang always said, “No matter how busy the project is, we can't ignore the students, and the most important thing for a teacher is to be responsible for his students.” Every doctoral student under the guidance of Prof. Yang has the experience of sitting at the teacher's desk many times to revise the paper together, in which verbatim, rigorous and even punctuation marks should be carefully considered.

Prof. Yang always regards guiding students' scientific research and learning as the most important thing. He will ignore rest and worry about delaying students' research progress. On the way of business trip, the “small table” in front of the plane seat and the “dining table” in the train are his “working table”. His students often receive the Prof. Yang revised papers on the way of business trip. Graduation season, the students are not the most nervous ones, but Prof. Yang behind them. To attend the student's graduation defense, Prof. Yang returned from a business trip at four o'clock in the morning and appeared at the student's defense scene at nine o'clock on time. During this period, extreme fatigue made it difficult for Prof. Yang to open his eyes many times, but he insisted on listening to the students' reports and discussing questions in the defense with the students. Prof. Yang did not have a moment to rest, until defense ended near the evening, he dragged his tired body out of the office. “The teacher is the one who could propagate the doctrine，impart professional knowledge，and resolve doubts.” Prof. Yang uses practical action, obtained respect and love from all students. As “The Book of Songs” said, “The high mountain rises and the scenery stops, although it can’t be there, but the heart yearns.”

Group photo on Teachers' Day

Rigorous academic research and tireless teaching

During the epidemic, it was the first time that Prof. Yang opened the course of Land Surface Process, which have no reference in China before, and the epidemic brought a lot of inconvenience to teaching. To ensure the teaching effect, Prof. Yang read many books and documents, reorganized and summarized the knowledge structure, and achieved very good teaching effect through careful preparation and accumulation of early trial lectures. Besides, Prof. Yang also made a new attempt to online teaching, live broadcasting in the official Weibo account of DESS in the form of open classes, attracting more than 200 teachers and students in related professional field to pay attention to and listen in. At that time, the course has reached more than 320 thousand times of browsing, becoming a veritable “online famous class!” When students listen to the lecture in class and read the courseware, they cloud deeply feel the rigorous and conscientious attitude of Prof. Yang from the rigorous and orderly knowledge framework. After this course, several students specially applied to include Prof. Yang as a member of their “supervisor group”.

The peach and the plum do not speak, yet a path is born beneath them.

Over the years of teaching and scientific research career, Prof. Yang has trained many students. Under the influence of Prof. Yang's words and deeds, many students also embarked on the road of scientific research. Whether it is a doctoral student under the guidance of Prof. Yang or a researcher who has graduated from his group for many years, every time recalls the experience of getting along with Prof. Yang, them are full of gratitude and admiration for Prof. Yang.

“Learn to be a teacher, act as a model”, whether in scientific research or education, Prof. Yang's years of hard work have achieved fruitful results. Every part of the students' daily study and life exudes the ardent concern of Prof. Yang. All the students deeply feel this kind of care and remember it in their hearts, “The peach and the plum do not speak, yet a path is born beneath them”, perhaps is the best annotation to Prof. Yang.