“一路向东”

我一生中绝大部分时间都在“一路向东”。自记事起，我就对别国他乡颇有兴趣，那里有不一样的历史、人和生活方式。20世纪50年代，我的父母从北美东海岸移居到中部的广阔大陆定居下来。那时候大多数人都留在从小长大的地方或附近，所以地区差异比现在更明显。我大多数的玩伴和他们的父母（我们称之为“中西部人”）都秉持着和我们不同的观念。他们说话的口音不同，经历不同，吃的食物种类也不同。但我的家人并没有孰好孰差的想法，大家不过是有着不同的家族历史和背景罢了。

总有一天，我会走出这里

童年时期，我遭遇了一场事故，手臂变得无力，导致中小学时体育成绩并不理想。不过因祸得福，我成为一个爱读书的孩子。20世纪60年代初的一个夏天，我去看望我的姨妈一家。在姨妈家里，我大部分时间都花在了阅读《国家地理》杂志上，从中找到了对欧洲、非洲，以及印度和中国等对我来说非常神秘的国度的深入描述。暑假结束后，我回到了家里。姨妈和姨父对我的阅读情景印象深刻，于是出资订阅了《国家地理》杂志，作为每年的固定礼物，直到我升入大学。

当阅读《国家地理》杂志时，我逐渐意识到，地球上有很多地方是完全不同于我所熟悉之处的，不单单是距离遥远，而是差别迥异。例如，单单美国北部就有很多地方看起来像不同的国家：北美东海岸的特点是拥有大都市中心区、发达的工业和复杂的文化，南方的繁荣则以农业经济为基础，但两地都深受不同类型移民的影响；西部的亮点在于养牛场和牛仔。海洋、山脉、平原、城市，这些地方的一切对我来说都是非常神奇。彼时的我生活在中西部郊区的一个小家庭中，那里绿意盎然的草坪环绕着宽阔的街道和牧场式的房屋。我相信，总有一天，我会走出这里，亲眼去领略更多的神奇之地。

I seem to have been moving east most of my life. An interest in foreign lands, where the history, way of life and people are different, has been with me for as long as I can remember. In the 1950s, my parents, who were from the then east coast of North America, ended up settling in the middle of that expansive continent. At that time, regional differences were more pronounced than they are today and most people stayed close to where they grew up. Most of my playmates and their parents, whom we referred to as “Midwesterners”, had a different outlook from those of my family and myself. They spoke with different accents, had different experiences, had traveled less and ate different types of food. This isn’t to say my family felt we were better or worse than our neighbors. We just had a different family history and background.

I would travel around some day

When I was a child I had an accident that rendered my arms weak. Consequently, I was not exceptionally good at sports in elementary and secondary school. So I developed into a bookish sort of child. One summer in the early 60s, I visited my mother’s sister and her husband. During that visit I spent most of my time reading my uncle’s extensive collection ofNational Geographicmagazines. There I found in-depth descriptions of places that seemed mythical to me; like Europe, Africa, India and China. When I returned home after the summer, my uncle and aunt were so impressed with my reading that they funded a subscription to theNational GeographicMagazine in my name, and maintained that gift annually until I enrolled at the university.

As I read theNational GeographicMagazine, I came to realize there were places on Earth that were different entirely from what I was familiar with. Not only were these far-away lands, they were also different in other ways. For instance, there were parts of North America that looked like different countries altogether. The marvel of the North American East Coast were its urban centers, industries and sophisticated culture.The south thrived on an agriculture-based economy. But both had been influenced greatly by different types of migrant workers. The west shone with its cattle ranches and cowboys. Everything around these places - the seas, the mountains the plains, the cities-were like marvels to me. Having grown up in a small family, in the suburbs of the American Midwest,where a deep green lawns surrounded the houses set on wide streets and built in faux-ranch style, I always knew I would travel and see these other marvels for myself someday.

When I first visited China in 2010, I already had considerable foreign working and living experience. I had obtained an undergraduate degree in geology from the University of Missouri, a master’s degree in paleontology from Southern Methodist University in Texas, a PhD in micropaleontology from the University of Texas, and had served in post-doctoral positions at the University of Michigan and Princeton University in New Jersey. My MSc research field area was in central Texas and, for my PhD research, I camped out by myself in eastern Oregon for several months each summer.It was after these experiences that I found myself accepting a third postdoctoral position at The Natural History Museum (NHM) in London. That contract was for two years, after which I anticipated I would return to the US. However, I ended up working at the NHM and living in England for the next 26 years, 13 of which were spent working as the “Keeper” or Head of the NHM Paleontology Department.

Norman MacLeod（英国/美国），博士，南京大学地球科学与工程学院教授，曾经在密歇根大学、普林斯顿大学、伦敦大学学院等机构担任学术职务。2001年至2013年在英国自然历史博物馆担任古生物部部长，2013年至2016年任研究生教育与培训部部长。Norman MacLeod教授的研究主要涉及显生宙生物灭绝的原因、形态的演变、生物地层学—古海洋学、形态计量学，以及数据分析方法在自然历史和古生物学中的应用。

Norman MacLeod (UK/US) is a Professor in the School of Earth Sciences and Engineering of Nanjing University. He also had held academic positions in institutions such as the University of Michigan, Princeton University, The Natural History Museum (London) and University College London. He worked at The Natural History Museum as its Keeper of Paleontology from 2001 to 2013, and he was then the museum’s Dean of Postgraduate Education and Training from 2013 to 2016. Professor MacLeod’s research primarily involves the causes of extinctions, evolution of form, biostratigraphy-paleoceanography, morphometrics, and the use of numerical data-analysis methods in natural history and archaeology.

当我2010年第一次访问中国时，我已经有了足够多国外的工作经验和生活经验：在密苏里大学获得了地质学学士学位，在得克萨斯州的南卫理公会大学获得了古生物学硕士学位，在得克萨斯大学获得了微体古生物学博士学位，在密歇根大学和普林斯顿大学从事过博士后研究。我硕士期间的野外考察主要在得克萨斯州中部进行，为了我的博士研究，我每年夏天都会在俄勒冈州东部露营几个月。后来，我又进入位于伦敦的自然历史博物馆做博士后，该合同期为两年，当时我打算两年后就回美国。然而合同到期后，我最终选择了留在这里工作，还在英格兰生活了26年。这期间的13年，我都担任着英国自然历史博物馆古生物部部长一职。

一次偶然的机会

我至今仍记得我的第一次中国之旅，那是2010年一次偶然的机会。前一年，我在澳大利亚悉尼参加国际古生物学家大会并作了报告。会议期间，我在一次社交活动中偶然遇到了杨群博士，我们是在得克萨斯州读研时候的同学。杨博士当时是中国科学院南京地质古生物研究所（NIGPAS）所长。我们愉快地重逢，彼此交流了各自的职业信息，并分享了作为大型、多样化学术研究机构行政负责人所面临的挑战。临别时，杨博士邀我去南京，我也礼貌地向他发出去伦敦的邀请。后来，我没把这件事太放在心上。但令我惊讶的是，2010年年初，杨博士发来了访问南京和NIGPAS的邀请函，我欣然接受了邀请。

2010年，我当时已经游历了美国、英国和欧洲各国，甚至多次访问了中美洲、南美洲、中东、澳大利亚和日本。但是我从未到访过中国，没有像其他古生物学同事赴华参会和实地考察的经历。2010年，中国已经向西方社会深度开放，包括发展自然科学，尤其是成本较低的古生物学等。我的研究并不需要大量的实地工作，即便以古生物学的标准来看，这似乎也是相当奇特的。杨博士邀请我，正是因为他看到了NIGPAS和英国自然历史博物馆之间可能建立战略合作的机会，并且他想让我向NIGPAS的研究人员和学生介绍我的定量古生物学研究。

A chance encounter

I still remember my first trip to China. It came quite by chance in 2010.The year before I had been attending and giving presentations at an international congress of paleontologists in Sydney, Australia. At one of the congress’ social activities, I happened to bump into Dr. Qun Yang. We had both been graduate students together back in Texas. Dr. Yang was then the Director of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology,Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS). During this pleasant reunion, we exchanged information about our respective careers and shared stories about the difficulties of being the administrative heads of large, diverse groups of academic researchers. On parting, Yang invited me to visit him in Nanjing and I returned the favor by inviting him to London. I thought a little about it after the meeting. To my surprise, an invitation to visit Nanjing and NIGPAS arrived from Dr. Yang early in 2010, which I accepted readily.

第一次访问中国的独特之旅

第一次访问中国南京于我而言是一场独一无二的经历。我已经习惯了独自前往那些英语不是主要语言的地方，也习惯了前往经济发展水平不同的地方，还有一些对待安全问题要比英美国家严肃得多的地方。然而，中国是迄今为止我到访过的最独特的目的地。令我印象深刻的是，在那里，传统的古老建筑、制度、风俗和惊人的现代建筑、制度、风俗自由地交错。从景观、公共基础设施、建筑、酒店和商店商品，到先进技术的日常使用、杂志与广告牌上的广告、充满活力的夜间经济，所见所闻都令我惊叹。在过往的旅行中，我时常感叹，美国、英国和欧洲在商店、文化、食物、街景等方面变得越来越难以区分。然而，在中国，情况并非如此。中国对我来说是一个不同的世界。

中国的人民和活力也让我感到与众不同。第一次访华时，我遇到的人都很善良、乐于助人、富有创造力。仅用“互动亲切”来形容他们给我留下的印象是远远不够的。我对他们来说正如他们对我一样陌生，毕竟当时的南京不如北京、上海和香港一样有那么多的西方面孔。可即便如此，大到时间和资源的分配，小到住宿，这里的人们都对我这个陌生人不吝善意。中国给我的印象是一个朝着目标大踏步前进的国家。

吸引我从事学术工作的主要原因是，我与那些努力奋斗、不断提升自我的人很有共鸣。我的职业生涯得益于自己学习新方法来解决旧问题的思路，因此我强烈认同也这样践行的人，无论他们个人目标如何或已经这样坚持了多久。当想到中国时，我看到的是一个世界大国正沿着这条道路前进，在庆祝它的人民在5000多年历史中取得空前成就同时，依然满怀激情追逐着待实现的目标。与几十年来我看到的笼罩在美国、英国和欧洲其他各国的慵懒和自负相比，这是一种十分独特的心态。见证了中国的成就和未来目标之后，我重新燃起了对人类的信念感。重大的、看似不可逾越的挑战比比皆是，人民、历史甚至哲学之间都存在差异。然而，如果能够正视这些差异，兼容并蓄、齐心协力、意气风发、心怀善意地朝着一系列共同目标迈进，我们就能克服这些挑战。最重要的是，我被提醒着，幸福的关键并不在于实现任何特定的个人目标或集体目标，尽管这在当下看起来似乎令人满意，相反它在于开始并继续踏上通往更加美好未来的征程。这些是我从第一次中国之旅中得到的收获，这些收获伴随我至今。

By 2010 had already travelled extensively in the UK and Europe and had even made multiple visits to central America, South America, the Middle East, Australia and Japan. But unlike some of my paleontological colleagues who had been to China for various conferences and field trips, I had never had an opportunity to pay that country a visit. Nonetheless, by 2010, China was well into its program of opening up to the west which included science in general and, as a relatively inexpensive science, paleontology in particular. My own research was usual in that it didn’t require a lot of field work and was considered rather exotic, even by paleontological standards. Yang invited me because he saw an opportunity to forge a strategic link between NIGPAS and the NHM and he had seen an opportunity to introduce NIGPAS staff and students to my mathematically oriented approach to paleontological research.

The first trip to China

That first trip to Nanjing in China was a singular experience for me. I had gotten used to traveling alone to places where English was not the primary language, to places with various levels of economic advancement, and also where security issues were taken much more seriously than in the US or UK (e.g., Israel). China, however, was by far the unique destination I had ever visited. The most impressive aspect (to me) was the almost casual juxtaposition of very ancient buildings, institutions and customs and the startlingly modern buildings, institutions and customs. Everything I experienced; from the landscapes, public infrastructure, architecture, hotels and the products at the on-sale shops, to the everyday use of advanced technology; advertisements in magazines and on billboards and vibrant night-time economy, was amazing. In my previous travels, I had often lamented that the US, UK and Europe were becoming less distinguishable from one another in terms of the shops, the culture, the food, the street scenes, etc. This was not the case in China. China was a different world for me.

The people and the energy in China also struck me as different. During my first visit, the people I met were so kind, helpful and inventive. To say the interactions I had were gracious to understate the impression they made on me. I was as foreign to them as they were to me - possibly even more so because there weren’t as many western faces in Nanjing at that time, as there were in Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong. The events I encountered during that visit ranged from causing the largest of impositions on time and resources of my hosts to the smallest of accommodations. Regardless Chinese people I met on that first trip were so kind to me, a complete stranger who was more-or-less helpless in their midst in more ways than I could count. But despite its foreign aspect, it was perfectly clear to me that China was a country on the move, proceeding forward towards a definite goal and in a hurry to get there.

多次受邀到中国参加学术活动

自第一次中国之旅以来，我几乎每年都会被邀请来中国。我经常受邀在南京、北京、武汉、成都等其他中国学术中心就我的研究专长举办讲座、演讲、研讨会和短期课程。在2010年的第一次中国之旅中，我认识了樊隽轩博士。他当时正在领导开展NIGPAS的一个大型项目，希望将中国各大期刊（西方研究人员无法访问）上发表的所有古生物学数据录入到一个大型的、设计精巧的、可公开访问的数据库：地球生物多样性数据库（GBDB，见http://www.geobiodiversity.com/home）。认识他以后，我在GBDB项目下为中国学生提供了许多不同主题的短期课程。2014年，一位美国同事向我介绍了南京大学的史宇坤教授，说我可能可以为她提供分析化石几何形态分析方法的训练，她想到伦敦访问我一年来学习这一方法。可惜的是，当时我已经安排了在那年春夏时节到NIGPAS度过四个月的学术休假。不过，我还是设法向史教授介绍了形态测量学，同时我在休假期间还完成了一系列的研究文章和一本著作。在那次中国之旅中，我还应邀与沈树忠博士一起在2014年至2019年担任NIGPAS古生物学杂志《远古世界》（Palaeoworld，见https://www.journals.elsevier.com/palaeoworld）的联合主编。

2014年，我还应邀参加了由英国自然环境研究委员会（NERC）、经济和社会研究委员会（ESRC）以及中国国家自然科学基金委员会（NSFC）在成都举办的中英自然科学和社会科学合作的研讨会，并在会上发表了演讲。会议期间，伦敦大学学院的Graham Shields博士在中场休息时和我交流，我们讨论了如何解决一些古生物学热点议题。向在场的杨博士介绍了我们的初步想法后，我们决定将其纳入一个大规模的英中合作研究项目的正式提案。如果成功，这将意味着为一系列的中英联合古生物学研究项目争取到一大笔资金。随后，我们三个人又从NERC与NSFC那里争取到资金，可以举办一场以生物圈演化和古生态复原力为主题，面向古生物学家们的国际会议。会议于2015年在南京举办。基于会议成果，一份重要的研究资助提案提交给了NERC与NSFC。提案旨在通过三个中英研究联盟的资助，整合优秀的地球科学和前沿的建模技术，从而拓深对生物圈进化的理解。这一提案取得了成功，并促成了从2018年到2021年众多研究项目、培训研讨会和学生交流的资助和实施（见http://www.betr-palaeo.org）。

The main reason I was attracted to a career in academics was that I felt a positive kinship with those who, like myself, continually made efforts toward self-improvement. Having managed to make a career out of learning new ways to solve old problems, I strongly identify with, and relate to,those who had decided to follow a similar path in life, irrespective of their personal goals or the distance they have travelled down that path. When I think of China I see one of the largest countries in the world, moving along that path; celebrating the unprecedented accomplishments of its people over more than 5,000 years of continuous history, but still enthusiastically embracing goals yet to be realized. This seemed an entirely unique mindset to me when compared to the distinctly, and increasingly, lethargic and complacent mindset I had seen gripping the US, the UK and Europe for many decades. It is not too much to say that my faith in the human race had been restored after witnessing China’s achievements and progress toward future goals. Significant and sometimes seemingly insurmountable challenges abound and differences between people, histories and even philosophies exist. However, if we can disregard those differences, accept one another, and work together, with energy and goodwill, toward a set of common goals, we can overcome these challenges. Most importantly, I was reminded that the key to happiness does not lie in reaching any particular personal or collective goal, as satisfying as that might seem in the moment.Rather, it lies in starting on, and continuing the endless journey toward a better future. These were the lessons I learned from that first trip to China.They are lessons that have stayed with me ever since.

Subsequent academic visits

Since that first visit, I began to be invited back to China on almost an annual basis. I have often been requested to deliver lectures, presentations, seminars and short courses in the areas of my research expertise,in Nanjing as well as in other Chinese academic centers such as Beijing,Wuhan and Chengdu. During that first visit in 2010, I met Dr. Junxuan Fan, who was leading a large project at NIGPAS to collect all the paleontological data published in Chinese journals (to which western researchers had very limited or no access) into a large, well-designed and publicly accessible database: the Geobiodiversity Database, or GBDB (see http://www.geobiodiversity.com/home). Since meeting Dr. Fan I have provided a number of short courses on various topics to Chinese students under his GBDB program. In 2014, Prof. Yukun Shi of Nanjing University was referred to me by a mutual colleague in the US. She was told I could provide her with training in the methods of analyzing the geometric form of her fossils. Dr. Shi arranged funding for a year’s stay with me in London.Unfortunately, it came at an awkward time as I had independently arranged funding to spend a four-month sabbatical stay at NIGPAS during the Spring and early Summer of that year. However, I managed to introduce Prof. Shi to the discipline of morphometrics while at the same time completing a series of research articles and a book during my Chinese sabbatical. On that trip, I was also asked to become a Co-Chief Editor of NIGPAS’ paleontology journalPalaeoworld(https://www.journals.elsevier.com/palaeoworld) with Dr. Shuzhong Shen, in which capacity we both served from 2014 to 2019.

In 2014, I was invited to attend and make a presentation at a Scoping Workshop for the China-UK Cooperation in the Natural and Social Sciences sponsored by Natural Environment Research and Economic & Social Research councils (NERC and ESRC) of the UK and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) that was held in Chengdu. During my time there, Dr. Graham Shields of the University College in London engaged me in a conversation during one of the breaks about how paleontology could address some of the topics under discussion at that meeting. After presenting our preliminary ideas to Dr. Yang, who was also in attendance,we decided to work them up into a formal proposal for a large-scale, collaborative (UK-China) research program that, if successful, would award considerable funding to a series of joint UK-China paleontological research projects. The three of us then secured funds for an additional international meeting of paleontologists interested in the general topic of biosphere evolution and paleoecological resilience, from NERC and NSFC. That meeting was held in Nanjing in 2015. On the basis of its outcome, a major researchfunding proposal was submitted to NERC-NSFC to advance understanding of biosphere evolution by integrating excellent geoscience and cutting-edge modeling through the funding of three UK-Chinese research consortia.This proposal was successful and resulted in the funding and delivery of numerous research projects, training workshops and student exchanges from 2018 through 2021 (see http://www.betr-palaeo.org).

加入南京大学“地学大数据”团队

2018年，樊隽轩博士向我发出了到南京大学任职的邀请，并建议我在地球科学与工程学院担任教授。当时，樊隽轩博士和沈博士正在办理从NIGPAS到南京大学的职位调动。在南京大学，他们可以加强和扩大现有的地球科学与工程学院的古生物学专业，并且引入一个新开始的国际大科学计划“深时数字地球”（DDE，见https://www.ddeworld.org）。“深时数字地球”是第一个被国际地质科学联合会（IUGS）批准的“大科学”计划，迄今为止，已获得十几个国际地球科学组织和机构的赞助。它将创建一系列联合的地球科学数据库，协调全球地球科学数据，前所未有地提供地球科学界几代科学家贡献的信息、视角和数据。这些贡献既对研究团体可见，也出于教育目的对普通公众可见（见Normalie，2019）。这一机会可以让我参与“深时数字地球”项目的古生物学和地层学工作，尤其是我长期感兴趣的定量地层对比方法的开发和应用、化石形态的几何分析以及我擅长的机器学习和人工智能方面。考虑到我与南京、北京和中国各地同事都有长期联系，加之我对地球科学数据的收集与整理葆有热忱，以及我对中国历史和文化也很痴迷，最终我接受了樊博士的建议。

2019年，我来到中国，担任南京大学的教授职务，教授我的第一门课程。不幸的是，自2020年以来，新冠肺炎疫情打乱了原有计划，导致整个2020年和2021年，我都在英国进行线上授课。课程大多在非社交时间进行，中英两国的时差带给我诸多不便，但是实践证明有效的大学教学是可以远程开展的。我相信，这将增加全球师生获得高水平教育的灵活性和途径。

Being part of the Geoscience Paleontology team at NJU

In 2018, Dr. Fan presented me with the offer to move from the NHM to the University of Nanjing (NJU). He proposed that I take up a professorship in the School of Earth Sciences and Engineering (SESE). At that time Dr. Fan and Dr. Shen were in the process of moving from NIGPAS to NJU, where they would augment and expand the existing SESE paleontology program.In particular, Dr. Fan would bring a newly funded international earth science research-infrastructure initiative — the Deep-Time Digital Earth(DDE, see https://www.ddeworld.org) program to NJU. The DDE Program is the first “big science” program to be approved by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and, to date, enjoys the sponsorship by over a dozen international earth-science organizations and institutions. It will create a series of federated earth-science databases that will harmonize global earth-science data; providing unprecedented access to the observations, information, and insights contributed by generations of earth scientists both to research communities and to the general public for educational purposes (see Normalie, 2019). I was to be part of the team that worked on the paleontological and stratigraphic aspects of the DDE program, particularly in the context of my long-standing interests of the development and application of quantitative stratigraphic correlation procedures, the geometric analysis of fossil form, and my expertise in machine learning and artificial intelligence. I accepted Dr. Fan’s kind offer, given my long-standing association with colleagues in Nanjing, Beijing and across China, my career-long interest in the collection and analysis of earth science data, my familiarity with China, and my personal interest in Chinese history and culture.

In 2019, I came to China to take up my NJU professorship and teach my first NJU courses. Unfortunately, in 2020, the COVID pandemic disrupted my own schedule, along with everyone else’s around the world. Owing to the pandemic, my 2020 and 2021 courses were all taught online from the UK. The difference in time between China and the UK was a major inconvenience during this time, as my classes were scheduled to be delivered at normal times in China, but in the middle of the night in the UK. Nonethe-less, the pandemic demonstrated that effective university-level teaching can be delivered remotely. I believe this will increase the flexibility and the access to high-level educational instruction for both teachers and students globally.

几十年以来，支持远程学习的技术早已成形了，但从社会和文化的角度来看，有趣的是，我们发现只有出现了全球性的大流行病，社会才开始接受这种原则上完全可以落地的技术。但是师生之间面对面互动，其效果是无法通过使用在线技术来模拟的，这是我在2022年1月回到南京继续教授春季学期常规课程时所感悟到的。尽管现在从扰乱世界各地日常生活方式的角度来看，新冠肺炎疫情已经基本结束，但这并不意味着教师和学生的生活将永远回归“正常”。通过被迫适应不断变化的条件，新冠肺炎疫情给教育机构和学术界带来了深刻长远的变化，远程授课、上课和作报告已经成为所有教师和学生正常工作的一部分。通过这种方式，我相信在广泛扩大教育机会，继续打破文化、政治、时间、空间造成的障碍方面具有积极影响。

2021年，国家自然科学基金委员会为我第一个完全基于中国的研究项目提供了资金，让我得以和樊博士一起，继续建立中西学术机构之间更密切的联系。为此，我们发起了成立新的“深时地球与生命跨国联盟”（DELTA）的倡议。该联盟是一个由南京大学、苏黎世大学、布里斯托尔大学、牛津大学和伦敦大学学院的成员组成的古生物学术研究合作组织。同年1月，我获得了2021年江苏省“双创人才”，以此表彰我的研究成就和过去对江苏省的贡献。

当我不进行研究、写作、指导学生、与同事合作、教学或参加会议时，我也有一些个人爱好。我最大的爱好是学习汉语和读中国文史。近期，我强烈推荐石静远的《汉字王国》。

我的一生都致力于科研。回首过去的职业生涯，我的生命呈现出一条向东的弧线，从地理、技术和知识角度来看都是如此。我旅居过很多地方，像当地居民一样了解那里。这使我在我的学生和同事中成为独一无二的存在。和万事万物别无二致的是，这种旅居的人生也有其代价。尽管如此，我特别珍惜“一路向东”在我的生命中发挥的重要作用，从中我受益匪浅。在这条曲折却始终向东的道路上，我期待看到新的前景、见解与机遇。

For decades, the technology required to support remote learning had been available. From a social and cultural perspective though, it is interesting to realize that it took a global pandemic for the society to embrace the opportunities that have long been provided, in principle, by this technology. Face-to-face interactions between students and teachers still have a quality that cannot be reproduced fully through the use of online technology. This was very evident when I returned to Nanjing in January 2022, to teach my regular Spring classes. But while the pandemic is moreor-less over now in terms of the manner in which it disrupted everyday life worldwide that does not mean things will ever go back to “normal”for teachers and students. By forcing us to adapt to altered conditions the COVID pandemic will been seen to have resulted in profound and longlasting changes in educational institutions and academics in general,insofar as the ability to deliver lectures and attend both classes and presentations remotely has become integrated into the normal work of all teachers and students. In this way I believe the pandemic will come to be seen as having a positive effect by extending educational opportunities more widely and continuing to break-down the barriers imposed by culture, politics, time and space.

In 2021, the NSFC awarded me funding for my first exclusively Chinabased research project. In that year I was also able to continue my work in encouraging closer links between Chinese and western academic institutions alongside Dr. Fan through our co-leadership of an initiative to link together a group of collaborating academic paleontological research institutions under a new Deep-Time Earth and Life Transnational Alliance(DELTA). At present DELTA includes earth and life scientists from Nanjing University, the University of Zürich, University of Bristol, Oxford University and University College London. It was also in January of that year I was informed that I would be among the initial recipients of the 2021 Jiangsu Innovative and Entrepreneurial Talent Award for research excellence and past contributions to Jiangsu Province.

I indulge in a couple of hobbies when I am not doing my research, writing,advising students, collaborating with colleagues, teaching or attending meetings. My most active hobby at the moment involves learning the Chinese language and reading Chinese literature and history; most recently,Jing Tsu’sKingdom of Characters, which I would highly recommend.

During the whole of my professional life I have been involved in scientific research. In retrospect, it’s difficult not also to notice the distinctly eastward arc of my personal history, from geographic, technological and intellectual perspectives. Living in lots of different places, and knowing them as only a long-term resident can, has made me unique to my students and colleagues. As with all things, this peripatetic personal history has had its price. Nonetheless, I have particularly valued, and benefitted from the role this eastward migration has played in my life in the things I have learned and the opportunities I have been offered, but most of all by the people I have met along the way. I continue to look forward to seeing what new vistas, insights and opportunities lie just around the corner on my long and twisting, but eastward-trending, path.