On the morning of August 17, 2012, Professor James M. Moran from Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, an academician of National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), came to NTSC for academic exchanges upon the invitation from the key laboratory of precision navigation positioning and timing technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and made an academic report entitled “VLBI Technological Advances and New Science Applications”. Researcher Li Zhigang, Director of Academic Committee of the NTSC, and other researchers, graduate students from related fields, attended the seminar. Researcher Yang Xuhai, Deputy Director of the key laboratory, chaired the seminar.

In the seminar, Professor Moran introduced VLBI’s working principle, technological development and its development in black hole imaging applications. The seminar was hold in simple terms with rigorous theories, actual data and interesting interaction. Subsequently, researchers from the Center had an in-depth discussion and exchange with Professor Moran on the contents of this seminar, and launched a wide-ranging discussion on related issues.

As a well-known professor of Harvard University and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Professor Moran has been hailed as the father of Radio Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) with his deep attainments in radioastronomy (astrophysical masers, massive black holes and cosmic distance measurement), signal processing, interferometry, etc. Many chief scientists and research backbone now engaged in VLBI research in our country have been benefited from his guidance and help.