On 23 December, we held a small but warm farewell gathering for Prof. Habib as he successfully completed his nine-month PIFI fellowship with our group and returned to his home country. A few days earlier, on 21 December, Prof. Habib kindly invited us to a dinner to express his thanks, during which we enjoyed a pleasant evening at a Xinjiang restaurant, and everyone bought a GYMANT sports outfit.
During his fellowship, Prof. Habib was deeply involved in our research activities and academic exchanges, making valuable contributions through discussions, collaboration, and support in both research and fieldwork. We are sincerely grateful for the time he spent with us, his generosity in sharing knowledge and experience, and his strong commitment to collaboration. His presence greatly enriched our group, both academically and personally. We wish him a smooth return home and all the very best in his work and life ahead, and we look forward to continuing and strengthening our collaboration in the future.
On December 23 morning, we gathered to farewell professor Ahsan Habib, who successfully completed his 9-month CAS PIFI fellowship. We took a lot of pictures, that many of us had developed friendship with Habib. I made a PPT/PDF album to record his commitment with our group and staying with us, since August 03, 2017. We will miss Habib, the always questioning professor and our good friend; and for sure he will visit us in the future.
ON October 31 to December 8, several of us (Shizhen, Jun, Gan, Jabir, Habib) attended the 45th International Symposium on Halogenated Persistent Organic Pollutants, also known as Dioxin2025, in Atalaya, Turkey. Shizhen, Gan and Jabir gave oral presentations and each chaired a session; Professor Habib gave an oral presentation and raised lots of questions in different sessions; Jun manned a nice poster designed by 子洋. We met many friends and former group members, including Paramita Chakraborty, Tom Harner, Perihan, Roland Weber, 刘国瑞, 袁博, 肖航 etc. Similar to Shizhen, Perihan and Tom Harner did their PhD in Lancaster with Kevin Jones; therefore they are 师姐/师兄. Paromita did her PhD in our group from 2006-2009. This time she came with two PhD students of her. Akriti Ashesh is a PhD student from Bihar University of India, and her supervisor is Linthoi(centred in the picture) who worked in our lab for her PhD in around 2009. Amandeep works with Tom Harner in Environment Canada responsible for the GAPS network; and she is originally from Punjab of India, sharing the same language and culture with Jabir who is also from Punjab but on the Pakistan side. We stayed in a nice hotel and enjoyed the 7-days symposium. We also took opportunity to visit Istanbul . Strong exotic experience and nice science and social events!
An ‘official’ debut of the GIG team.
Professor Habib is always a question asker.
Roland is always catching us.
Meet with Amandeep (left 3), Paromita (centre) and her PhD students.Tom and Shizhen both did their PhDs with Kevin Jones in Lancaster University.Second time meeting Yuan Bo in Dioxin conference.Perihan and Shizhen both did their PhDs in Lancaster with Kevin Jones.Akriti is a PhD student of Ningombam Linthoingambi Devi, who visited in our group for her PhD, of the Central Bihar University, Bihar, IndiaNice to see Roland and 刘国瑞 at Antalya.
Paromita did her PhD in our group in 2006-2009。Gan and Paromita co-chaired a session.Excursion time with Tom Harner and Amandeep from Environment Canada.Kei Ohno is the UNEP secretary of Basel-Rotterdam-Stockholm Conventions.Gan and HabibExcursion time with the ancient waterducts.Selfie with Professor Takeshi Nakano who attended all the 25 DIOXIN Symposiums and enjoyed to be a famous paparazzi on the meetings.
University of Istanbul.SEMA dance (托钵僧旋转) is an World Intangible Cultural Heritage in Turkey.
