Every young researcher has dreamed of a panacea for a successful academic career. Prof. Yiyu Yao from the University of Regina, Canada, was of no exception. Yet, in his distinguished lecture on 4 December 2012, Prof. Yao proved that such a wonder drug does not exist. Instead, Prof. Yao suggested that there exists a set of rules, strategies, methods, heuristics and tools which are more promising ways to help researchers in leading a successful academic career. In the distinguished lecture, Prof. Yao shared many valuable advices from great academics with our students. He also discussed elaborately his '7 rules' of being a successful academics: Make the right decision; Have the right attitude; Ask the right question; Master the right set of knowledge; Associate with the right people; Tell good stories and Have fun in research. The one-and-a-half-hour lecture was full of laughters, and many of our students have learnt a lot about what and how they are going to achieve in the future.
Prof. Yiyu Yao is a professor of computer science at the University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. His research focuses on foundations and implementation of intelligent systems. His recent publications contributes to a triarchic theory of granular computing, a theory of three-way decisions, interval sets and algebras, generalized rough sets, decision-theoretic rough sets, foundations of data mining, models of information retrieval systems, information retrieval support systems, and Web Intelligence.
