Great Masters of Science and Technology Lecture Series - Special Session 1 - Aggregatism: See the Forest, then to the Trees

Date: 26th March 2026 (Thursday)

Time: 10:00-11:30

Venue: Block D Conference Hall of MUST

Topic of the speech: Aggregatism: See the Forest, then to the Trees

Guest Speaker: Academician Tang Ben Zhong

Language: Mandarin

Summary:

Modern science has excelled through molecularism, yet many real-world behaviors belong to aggregates, organized assemblies whose collective properties can diverge markedly from those of isolated molecules. In this talk, Prof. Tang Ben Zhong proposes aggregatism as a research paradigm for aggregate science, shifting both the starting and focal point from molecular species to aggregate systems to better cope with disappearance and emergence systems. Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) is an archetypal emergent phenomenon in which nonemissive molecules become strongly luminescent upon aggregation. This aggregate-level perspective can be extended to other emergent systems, including room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP), circularly polarized luminescence (CPL), mechanoluminescence (ML), and clusteroluminescence (CL). Using CL as an illustrative example, it is found that emission can arise from through-space interactions and the organizational arrangement of the molecular parts, which promises more “predictable” development of new emergent systems. As such, a practical two-way framework is proposed: it starts from the aggregate, moves upward to deploy function, and digs downward to investigate key interactions and organizational principles, aiming to make emergent behavior more discoverable, more predictable, and more useful for rational materials design and for understanding complex systems such as life.

Guest Profile:

Professor Tang Ben Zhong received his BS degree from South China University of Technology in 1982 and his PhD degree from Kyoto University, Japan, in 1988. He was elected a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009 and a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2020. In 2021, he joined The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen) as Dean of the School of Science and Engineering. He has published more than 2,600 academic papers, with over 244,000 total citations and an h-index of 217. He has delivered more than 500 invited talks at international academic conferences and holds over 100 authorized patents. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Aggregate, a journal published by Wiley, and serves as an advisor, editorial board member, or guest editor for more than 20 scientific journals.

His main research areas include materials science, macromolecular chemistry, and biomedical theranostics. He coined the concept of Aggregation-Induced Emission (AIE) and his research group has been spearheading the global advancement of AIE in chemistry and materials science. Since 2014, he has been continuously recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in both materials science and chemistry by Clarivate Analytics.

For inquiries, please contact Mr. Zhang from the Faculty of Innovation Engineering, Tel: (853) 8897 1758, E-mail: gzhang@must.edu.mo.