1. So how does the group meeting operates? A good question that is not easy to answer. Chong is constantly finding the best (at least he thinks) recipe. So do not be surprised when you find out that the group meeting policy changes.
2. For now, there are two different sorts of meetings that involve Chong’s participation: i) project meeting, ii) group meeting. The information and expectations for these two meetings are listed below.

Project meeting

1. The project meeting is an informal weekly meeting that involves the people participating in the same project or similar ones. Typically no more than three persons should be involved for the sake of discussion efficiency.  The purpose of this meeting is to provide a weekly update/discussion channel about the research progress in a specific project/direction.
2. All participants are required to present with a few well-prepared slides. The discussion could be combative. Feel free to K.O. your boss in research (not in any physical form). Indeed you are expected to do so, especially in experimental details, as your career in scientific research advances.
3. The exact schedule of the project meeting will be updated in accordance with the participants’ availability. Chong will inform you which group you belong to. In many cases, it will be updated at least every quarter.
4. The presence of project meeting does not exclude the (likely) scenario that Chong will buzz you casually for immediate research update, possibly with a cup of coffee from the espresso machine in the lab.

Group meeting

1. The group meeting is a formal weekly meeting that includes everyone in the group and possibly with other guests. For now, four talks will be presented. No egregious use of cell phones/labtops in the audience. (A flow-chart is available here).
2. Two randomly selective literature talks. A random number generator will be used and selective two fortunate/unfortunate group members. Each member give a 5-min uninterrupted talk of a recent paper. The talk is timed and should be 5.0±0.5 min. In the talk, the speaker should address four questions: 1) What is this paper talking about? 2) What is the innovation/novelty in this paper? 3) How do the authors illustrate the innovation/novelty in the paper? 4) Why do you pick this paper? Q&A follows each talk.
3. Research presentation. Each speaker gives a 15-min uninturrpeted talk of his/her research proect. The talk is timed and should be 15±2 min. This is roughly the length of a student talk at ACS/MRS national meetings. Q&A follows the presentation.
4. A themed talk. The speaker gives an introduction to the theme of this talk, the background and its introduction. The speaker should also list all the papers/topics in the talk and where there will be opportunities to ask questions. After this introduction, the audience is allowed to ask questions. For each paper/sub-topic, the speaker should present for a few minutes, and let the audience ask questions before proceeding further. There should be multiple check-points for questions during the whole talk.