Tsinghua Vice President Gong Ke attended the inauguration of the new chancellor of UC Berkeley, Robert J. Birgeneau, on April 15.

About 60 of UC Berkeley’s partner universities sent representatives to the inaugural ceremony for Professor Birgeneau, who is a world-renowned physicist.

Before coming to UC Berkeley, Professor Birgeneau worked at Yale University, Oxford University, Bell Laboratories, and MIT, where he was chairman of the physics department and the dean of science. From 2000-2004, he was president of the University of Toronto.

Vice President Gong attended the ceremony on behalf of President Gu Binglin and extended the best wishes of Tsinghua to the new chancellor.

UC Berkeley has been a sister university of Tsinghua since 1979.