“一路向東”

我一生中絕大部分時間都在“一路向東”。自記事起，我就對別國他鄉(xiāng)頗有興趣，那里有不一樣的歷史、人和生活方式。20世紀50年代，我的父母從北美東海岸移居到中部的廣闊大陸定居下來。那時候大多數(shù)人都留在從小長大的地方或附近，所以地區(qū)差異比現(xiàn)在更明顯。我大多數(shù)的玩伴和他們的父母（我們稱之為“中西部人”）都秉持著和我們不同的觀念。他們說話的口音不同，經(jīng)歷不同，吃的食物種類也不同。但我的家人并沒有孰好孰差的想法，大家不過是有著不同的家族歷史和背景罷了。

總有一天，我會走出這里

童年時期，我遭遇了一場事故，手臂變得無力，導致中小學時體育成績并不理想。不過因禍得福，我成為一個愛讀書的孩子。20世紀60年代初的一個夏天，我去看望我的姨媽一家。在姨媽家里，我大部分時間都花在了閱讀《國家地理》雜志上，從中找到了對歐洲、非洲，以及印度和中國等對我來說非常神秘的國度的深入描述。暑假結(jié)束后，我回到了家里。姨媽和姨父對我的閱讀情景印象深刻，于是出資訂閱了《國家地理》雜志，作為每年的固定禮物，直到我升入大學。

當閱讀《國家地理》雜志時，我逐漸意識到，地球上有很多地方是完全不同于我所熟悉之處的，不單單是距離遙遠，而是差別迥異。例如，單單美國北部就有很多地方看起來像不同的國家：北美東海岸的特點是擁有大都市中心區(qū)、發(fā)達的工業(yè)和復雜的文化，南方的繁榮則以農(nóng)業(yè)經(jīng)濟為基礎，但兩地都深受不同類型移民的影響；西部的亮點在于養(yǎng)牛場和牛仔。海洋、山脈、平原、城市，這些地方的一切對我來說都是非常神奇。彼時的我生活在中西部郊區(qū)的一個小家庭中，那里綠意盎然的草坪環(huán)繞著寬闊的街道和牧場式的房屋。我相信，總有一天，我會走出這里，親眼去領略更多的神奇之地。

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（英國/美國），博士，南京大學地球科學與工程學院教授，曾經(jīng)在密歇根大學、普林斯頓大學、倫敦大學學院等機構(gòu)擔任學術職務。2001年至2013年在英國自然歷史博物館擔任古生物部部長，2013年至2016年任研究生教育與培訓部部長。Norman MacLeod教授的研究主要涉及顯生宙生物滅絕的原因、形態(tài)的演變、生物地層學—古海洋學、形態(tài)計量學，以及數(shù)據(jù)分析方法在自然歷史和古生物學中的應用。

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.

當我2010年第一次訪問中國時，我已經(jīng)有了足夠多國外的工作經(jīng)驗和生活經(jīng)驗：在密蘇里大學獲得了地質(zhì)學學士學位，在得克薩斯州的南衛(wèi)理公會大學獲得了古生物學碩士學位，在得克薩斯大學獲得了微體古生物學博士學位，在密歇根大學和普林斯頓大學從事過博士后研究。我碩士期間的野外考察主要在得克薩斯州中部進行，為了我的博士研究，我每年夏天都會在俄勒岡州東部露營幾個月。后來，我又進入位于倫敦的自然歷史博物館做博士后，該合同期為兩年，當時我打算兩年后就回美國。然而合同到期后，我最終選擇了留在這里工作，還在英格蘭生活了26年。這期間的13年，我都擔任著英國自然歷史博物館古生物部部長一職。

一次偶然的機會

我至今仍記得我的第一次中國之旅，那是2010年一次偶然的機會。前一年，我在澳大利亞悉尼參加國際古生物學家大會并作了報告。會議期間，我在一次社交活動中偶然遇到了楊群博士，我們是在得克薩斯州讀研時候的同學。楊博士當時是中國科學院南京地質(zhì)古生物研究所（NIGPAS）所長。我們愉快地重逢，彼此交流了各自的職業(yè)信息，并分享了作為大型、多樣化學術研究機構(gòu)行政負責人所面臨的挑戰(zhàn)。臨別時，楊博士邀我去南京，我也禮貌地向他發(fā)出去倫敦的邀請。后來，我沒把這件事太放在心上。但令我驚訝的是，2010年年初，楊博士發(fā)來了訪問南京和NIGPAS的邀請函，我欣然接受了邀請。

2010年，我當時已經(jīng)游歷了美國、英國和歐洲各國，甚至多次訪問了中美洲、南美洲、中東、澳大利亞和日本。但是我從未到訪過中國，沒有像其他古生物學同事赴華參會和實地考察的經(jīng)歷。2010年，中國已經(jīng)向西方社會深度開放，包括發(fā)展自然科學，尤其是成本較低的古生物學等。我的研究并不需要大量的實地工作，即便以古生物學的標準來看，這似乎也是相當奇特的。楊博士邀請我，正是因為他看到了NIGPAS和英國自然歷史博物館之間可能建立戰(zhàn)略合作的機會，并且他想讓我向NIGPAS的研究人員和學生介紹我的定量古生物學研究。

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.

第一次訪問中國的獨特之旅

第一次訪問中國南京于我而言是一場獨一無二的經(jīng)歷。我已經(jīng)習慣了獨自前往那些英語不是主要語言的地方，也習慣了前往經(jīng)濟發(fā)展水平不同的地方，還有一些對待安全問題要比英美國家嚴肅得多的地方。然而，中國是迄今為止我到訪過的最獨特的目的地。令我印象深刻的是，在那里，傳統(tǒng)的古老建筑、制度、風俗和驚人的現(xiàn)代建筑、制度、風俗自由地交錯。從景觀、公共基礎設施、建筑、酒店和商店商品，到先進技術的日常使用、雜志與廣告牌上的廣告、充滿活力的夜間經(jīng)濟，所見所聞都令我驚嘆。在過往的旅行中，我時常感嘆，美國、英國和歐洲在商店、文化、食物、街景等方面變得越來越難以區(qū)分。然而，在中國，情況并非如此。中國對我來說是一個不同的世界。

中國的人民和活力也讓我感到與眾不同。第一次訪華時，我遇到的人都很善良、樂于助人、富有創(chuàng)造力。僅用“互動親切”來形容他們給我留下的印象是遠遠不夠的。我對他們來說正如他們對我一樣陌生，畢竟當時的南京不如北京、上海和香港一樣有那么多的西方面孔?？杉幢闳绱?，大到時間和資源的分配，小到住宿，這里的人們都對我這個陌生人不吝善意。中國給我的印象是一個朝著目標大踏步前進的國家。

吸引我從事學術工作的主要原因是，我與那些努力奮斗、不斷提升自我的人很有共鳴。我的職業(yè)生涯得益于自己學習新方法來解決舊問題的思路，因此我強烈認同也這樣踐行的人，無論他們個人目標如何或已經(jīng)這樣堅持了多久。當想到中國時，我看到的是一個世界大國正沿著這條道路前進，在慶祝它的人民在5000多年歷史中取得空前成就同時，依然滿懷激情追逐著待實現(xiàn)的目標。與幾十年來我看到的籠罩在美國、英國和歐洲其他各國的慵懶和自負相比，這是一種十分獨特的心態(tài)。見證了中國的成就和未來目標之后，我重新燃起了對人類的信念感。重大的、看似不可逾越的挑戰(zhàn)比比皆是，人民、歷史甚至哲學之間都存在差異。然而，如果能夠正視這些差異，兼容并蓄、齊心協(xié)力、意氣風發(fā)、心懷善意地朝著一系列共同目標邁進，我們就能克服這些挑戰(zhàn)。最重要的是，我被提醒著，幸福的關鍵并不在于實現(xiàn)任何特定的個人目標或集體目標，盡管這在當下看起來似乎令人滿意，相反它在于開始并繼續(xù)踏上通往更加美好未來的征程。這些是我從第一次中國之旅中得到的收獲，這些收獲伴隨我至今。

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.

多次受邀到中國參加學術活動

自第一次中國之旅以來，我?guī)缀趺磕甓紩谎垇碇袊Ｎ医?jīng)常受邀在南京、北京、武漢、成都等其他中國學術中心就我的研究專長舉辦講座、演講、研討會和短期課程。在2010年的第一次中國之旅中，我認識了樊雋軒博士。他當時正在領導開展NIGPAS的一個大型項目，希望將中國各大期刊（西方研究人員無法訪問）上發(fā)表的所有古生物學數(shù)據(jù)錄入到一個大型的、設計精巧的、可公開訪問的數(shù)據(jù)庫：地球生物多樣性數(shù)據(jù)庫（GBDB，見http://www.geobiodiversity.com/home）。認識他以后，我在GBDB項目下為中國學生提供了許多不同主題的短期課程。2014年，一位美國同事向我介紹了南京大學的史宇坤教授，說我可能可以為她提供分析化石幾何形態(tài)分析方法的訓練，她想到倫敦訪問我一年來學習這一方法。可惜的是，當時我已經(jīng)安排了在那年春夏時節(jié)到NIGPAS度過四個月的學術休假。不過，我還是設法向史教授介紹了形態(tài)測量學，同時我在休假期間還完成了一系列的研究文章和一本著作。在那次中國之旅中，我還應邀與沈樹忠博士一起在2014年至2019年擔任NIGPAS古生物學雜志《遠古世界》（Palaeoworld，見https://www.journals.elsevier.com/palaeoworld）的聯(lián)合主編。

2014年，我還應邀參加了由英國自然環(huán)境研究委員會（NERC）、經(jīng)濟和社會研究委員會（ESRC）以及中國國家自然科學基金委員會（NSFC）在成都舉辦的中英自然科學和社會科學合作的研討會，并在會上發(fā)表了演講。會議期間，倫敦大學學院的Graham Shields博士在中場休息時和我交流，我們討論了如何解決一些古生物學熱點議題。向在場的楊博士介紹了我們的初步想法后，我們決定將其納入一個大規(guī)模的英中合作研究項目的正式提案。如果成功，這將意味著為一系列的中英聯(lián)合古生物學研究項目爭取到一大筆資金。隨后，我們?nèi)齻€人又從NERC與NSFC那里爭取到資金，可以舉辦一場以生物圈演化和古生態(tài)復原力為主題，面向古生物學家們的國際會議。會議于2015年在南京舉辦?；跁h成果，一份重要的研究資助提案提交給了NERC與NSFC。提案旨在通過三個中英研究聯(lián)盟的資助，整合優(yōu)秀的地球科學和前沿的建模技術，從而拓深對生物圈進化的理解。這一提案取得了成功，并促成了從2018年到2021年眾多研究項目、培訓研討會和學生交流的資助和實施（見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).

加入南京大學“地學大數(shù)據(jù)”團隊

2018年，樊雋軒博士向我發(fā)出了到南京大學任職的邀請，并建議我在地球科學與工程學院擔任教授。當時，樊雋軒博士和沈博士正在辦理從NIGPAS到南京大學的職位調(diào)動。在南京大學，他們可以加強和擴大現(xiàn)有的地球科學與工程學院的古生物學專業(yè)，并且引入一個新開始的國際大科學計劃“深時數(shù)字地球”（DDE，見https://www.ddeworld.org）?！吧顣r數(shù)字地球”是第一個被國際地質(zhì)科學聯(lián)合會（IUGS）批準的“大科學”計劃，迄今為止，已獲得十幾個國際地球科學組織和機構(gòu)的贊助。它將創(chuàng)建一系列聯(lián)合的地球科學數(shù)據(jù)庫，協(xié)調(diào)全球地球科學數(shù)據(jù)，前所未有地提供地球科學界幾代科學家貢獻的信息、視角和數(shù)據(jù)。這些貢獻既對研究團體可見，也出于教育目的對普通公眾可見（見Normalie，2019）。這一機會可以讓我參與“深時數(shù)字地球”項目的古生物學和地層學工作，尤其是我長期感興趣的定量地層對比方法的開發(fā)和應用、化石形態(tài)的幾何分析以及我擅長的機器學習和人工智能方面?？紤]到我與南京、北京和中國各地同事都有長期聯(lián)系，加之我對地球科學數(shù)據(jù)的收集與整理葆有熱忱，以及我對中國歷史和文化也很癡迷，最終我接受了樊博士的建議。

2019年，我來到中國，擔任南京大學的教授職務，教授我的第一門課程。不幸的是，自2020年以來，新冠肺炎疫情打亂了原有計劃，導致整個2020年和2021年，我都在英國進行線上授課。課程大多在非社交時間進行，中英兩國的時差帶給我諸多不便，但是實踐證明有效的大學教學是可以遠程開展的。我相信，這將增加全球師生獲得高水平教育的靈活性和途徑。

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.

幾十年以來，支持遠程學習的技術早已成形了，但從社會和文化的角度來看，有趣的是，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)只有出現(xiàn)了全球性的大流行病，社會才開始接受這種原則上完全可以落地的技術。但是師生之間面對面互動，其效果是無法通過使用在線技術來模擬的，這是我在2022年1月回到南京繼續(xù)教授春季學期常規(guī)課程時所感悟到的。盡管現(xiàn)在從擾亂世界各地日常生活方式的角度來看，新冠肺炎疫情已經(jīng)基本結(jié)束，但這并不意味著教師和學生的生活將永遠回歸“正?！?。通過被迫適應不斷變化的條件，新冠肺炎疫情給教育機構(gòu)和學術界帶來了深刻長遠的變化，遠程授課、上課和作報告已經(jīng)成為所有教師和學生正常工作的一部分。通過這種方式，我相信在廣泛擴大教育機會，繼續(xù)打破文化、政治、時間、空間造成的障礙方面具有積極影響。

2021年，國家自然科學基金委員會為我第一個完全基于中國的研究項目提供了資金，讓我得以和樊博士一起，繼續(xù)建立中西學術機構(gòu)之間更密切的聯(lián)系。為此，我們發(fā)起了成立新的“深時地球與生命跨國聯(lián)盟”（DELTA）的倡議。該聯(lián)盟是一個由南京大學、蘇黎世大學、布里斯托爾大學、牛津大學和倫敦大學學院的成員組成的古生物學術研究合作組織。同年1月，我獲得了2021年江蘇省“雙創(chuàng)人才”，以此表彰我的研究成就和過去對江蘇省的貢獻。

當我不進行研究、寫作、指導學生、與同事合作、教學或參加會議時，我也有一些個人愛好。我最大的愛好是學習漢語和讀中國文史。近期，我強烈推薦石靜遠的《漢字王國》。

我的一生都致力于科研?；厥走^去的職業(yè)生涯，我的生命呈現(xiàn)出一條向東的弧線，從地理、技術和知識角度來看都是如此。我旅居過很多地方，像當?shù)鼐用褚粯恿私饽抢?。這使我在我的學生和同事中成為獨一無二的存在。和萬事萬物別無二致的是，這種旅居的人生也有其代價。盡管如此，我特別珍惜“一路向東”在我的生命中發(fā)揮的重要作用，從中我受益匪淺。在這條曲折卻始終向東的道路上，我期待看到新的前景、見解與機遇。

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.