Hangxing Xie

has received the title of Ph.D. today. I was in the commission. His research has been in the field of electron transport at interfaces of organic materials: it is an interesting and potentially important fact that such interfaces between practically insulating materials can provide electric conduction. His research has been supervised by Alberto Morpurgo, who has been in Delft for quite some time, has made much important research here, but has left for a better position in Geneve about a year and half ago. They say he did not fit well. They did not want to promote him to a full professor. Although the story is rather old, I still feel a pity – not that much for Alberto, rather for my colleagues and Dutch society in general that has an apparent difficulty in appreciating unusual, ambitious and not-always-agreeable personalities. 

Due to this, Hangxing Xie has been working in Delft as wel in Geneve, Huub Salemink was his promotor from the Delft side. His defence performance was very tough and to the point. Beside scientific question I have addressed one of his propositions: that went about online shopping and women. I was astonished by his serious studies of the question and brisk manner of presenting every detail of this subject. 

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