Excellent Teaching Assistant Award 2019-20

Mr Yinan SONG received his bachelor degree in chemical biology from Xiamen University in 2017. He then joined The University of Hong Kong as a postgraduate student in the Department of Chemistry, under the supervision of Professor Xiaoyu LI and focusing on protein labeling and DNA encoded library for drug discovery.

Yinan has been serving as a demonstrator of Organic Chemistry Laboratory since the first day he joined HKU in 2017. This laboratory course is a practical one which requires not only specialised chemistry knowledge but also manipulative ability to complete different kinds of chemical reactions.

Following a short briefing given by the teacher and chief demonstrator at the beginning of each class, students are divided into small groups for activities and discussion. In this manner, demonstrators play essential roles in facilitating students to understand the concepts at classes.

Yinan did not merely satisfy all the requirements as a demonstrator with great passion, but also took it as a great opportunity to share his experience as a senior student, from research related problems such as how these reactions work in authentic research lab to some life experience being a primary researcher. As he said, “It’s not only about demonstrating at a specific course”. Having served as a demonstrator for two years, Yinan was then selected as the chief demonstrator and continues to help students accomplish the course.