Sharing My Research Journey with the XJTLU Alumni Community in Melbourne

On 8 August 2026, I was invited to speak at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) Alumni Gathering in Melbourne, held at Graduate House at the University of Melbourne. The event brought together XJTLU alumni from different generations and professional backgrounds, with Professor Youmin Xi, Executive President of XJTLU and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, joining the Melbourne alumni community for an afternoon of talks, conversations, and reflection.

Professor Xi shared his perspectives on XJTLU’s development over the past two decades, as well as the university’s evolving approach to education and its role in preparing students for a rapidly changing world.

As one of the invited alumni speakers, I shared my own journey from studying Electrical Engineering and Automation at XJTLU to working in engineering and eventually pursuing robotics research at the University of Melbourne. Rather than focusing only on the technical details of individual projects, I also reflected on how the technical knowledge we develop as engineers and researchers can become a way of responding to broader social questions.

One example was my Neighbor Koala community robot project, based on my HRI 2025 work on community robots, which explores how robotics might support interaction and connection between people in community spaces. Projects like this have gradually shaped the way I think about research: not only as a process of solving technical problems, but also as a way of asking what technology should contribute to society, whose needs it responds to, and what kinds of relationships it might enable.

I also had the opportunity to join Professor Xi and fellow alumni speakers in a roundtable discussion on the relationship between the rapid development of AI technologies and humanistic literacy. One point Professor Xi raised particularly resonated with me: we can easily confuse means with ends, gradually turning the tools we use to pursue a goal into goals in themselves.

This closely reflects how I have come to think about research. What we can build is a means, not an end; we should not build simply for the sake of building. The same applies to academic research: publishing papers is important, but publishing itself should not become the purpose of research. A paper is one of the ways through which we communicate, validate, and collectively advance technical knowledge. The broader purpose is to help technology progress in a thoughtful and responsible direction. As our technical capabilities continue to expand, questions of why we develop a technology, who it is for, and how it will shape people and society become just as important as what we are technically capable of creating.

It was a pleasure to reconnect with the XJTLU community in Melbourne and to hear the very different paths that fellow alumni have taken since graduation. Returning to this community ten years after completing my undergraduate studies also gave me a chance to reflect on how my own understanding of engineering and research has evolved—from learning how to build technologies to thinking more carefully about how those technologies participate in the world around us.

Many thanks to the XJTLU Alumni team for the invitation and for bringing the Melbourne alumni community together, and to Professor Xi, the other speakers, and fellow alumni for the thoughtful conversations throughout the event.