Prof Bingyang Cao attended the 1st Asian Conference on Thermal Science on March 26-30, 2017 at Jeju Island, Korea, and gave a keynote lecture entitled "Nanoparticle orientation based thermal smart materials with tunable thermal properties". Prof Bingyang Cao also served as member of the Executive Board of AUTSE and International Scientific Committee of ACTS. Prof Zengyuan Guo won the first AUTSE Outstanding Achievement Award.