Experience of job application and ETAST mentoring program in 2023
Prof. Chiu successfully transitioned from her European academic path from ETH Zurich back to a faculty position at NTU in Taiwan. Her motivation was catalyzed by the ETAST Mentoring Program, which proved instrumental in teaching her to strategically refine her application documents. This strategic preparation, combined with her earlier research group experiences in Europe, enabled her to secure the faculty role and earn the Yushan Young Fellow distinction in 2024.
*A video summary of this interview created by NotebookLM:
Some background related to the interview:
The interview took place at National Taiwan University in person on October 2nd, 2025. The transcript was made by Jian-Jia and checked by Pin-Jung afterwards. Pin-Jung joined the mentoring program offered by ETAST e.V. in November 4-5, 2023, coordinated by Jian-Jia.
Jian-Jia: Can you share your experience when you study abroad and how and when you made your decision to study at ETH and continue as a postdoc?
Pin-Jung: Actually, I studied at NTHU as a bachelor student. During the third year of my bachelor, I already went to University of Zurich for an exchange for one year. Back then, I already decided that after my bachelor, I would like to continue higher education in Europe. It was mainly because at the beginning I was actually comparing whether I should go to the the US or to Europe, but there is some reality issue. For instance, when I was applying to the U.S., I thought that it would take much time and much more effort if I have to prepare for all those exams like GRE physics and all these things. On the other hand, I also thought that the tuition fee in the US is much higher compared to Europe. Hence, I decided that I want to pursue higher education in Europe. Also, the one-year experience that I had in Zurich also motivated me that Europe is actually a good place to go. After my bachelor, I went to Zurich and continued studying there until finishing my PhD and staying further
for my postdoc research.
Jian-Jia: Was there a reason that you didn’t explore other European areas?
Pin-Jung: One main reason was because I was already familiar with the place. So I didn’t really want to expand too much. Well, I think also because they pay well as well. Additionally, when I was applying for the PhD, my boyfriend (now husband) was also in Switzerland, so I didn’t want to go too far.
Jian-Jia: After your PhD, which options did you consider to continue your career?
Pin-Jung: I actually always wanted to stay in academia. Already since the beginning of my study, I have wanted to become a professor and hopefully back in Taiwan. So, that was always my motivation. I never really think much about other options except continuing in academia.
Jian-Jia: Did you have a strategy during your PhD and Postdoc for professorship?
Pin-Jung: I would say not really much thought of strategies.I always just focus mainly on the research itself. When I was doing my PhD, I focused on one part of physics. But, when I aimed to come back to Taiwan, one main change I did was to shift my gear a little bit to a topic that I think
would fit Taiwan better. It’s not really like a very good strategy, but at least I tried to go somewhere that may have a higher chance.
Jian-Jia: That means that you had a target. When you planned to apply for position in Taiwan, what was your strategy of preparing your application package?
Pin-Jung: To be honest, when I applied for professorships in Taiwan, I thought that I was not ready to apply for the faculty position. When I first applied, it was only during my second year of postdoc. So back then I didn’t think that I was ready.
Jian-Jia: When was that?
Pin-Jung: It was in 2023 when I attended the mentoring program organized by ETAST e.V. Back then I didn’t think I was ready. Actually, it was really the mentoring program that motivated me to start doing this.
Jian-Jia: So then you started to have some strategies or some ideas about your vision, right?
Pin-Jung: I think it’s not really that I already have an idea in mind that what I wanted to do. I only thought that, okay, I need to prepare all these things required by the mentoring program, so why not submit them for application? And for instance, like for all these application packages, they always tell us what kinds of information they need, so I just prepared what were asked. For instance, like all the research plans or so on.
Jian-Jia: In the mentoring program, we talked about how to understand the job description. Do you think the information was helpful?
Pin-Jung: I think they are very helpful, especially for those who are interested in applying for European universities. Usually these universities have a very dedicated plan, like what kinds of professors or faculty positions they are looking for. But I think the main difference compared to European positions and positions in Taiwan is that usually Taiwanese universities do not have a dedicated plan for a professorship. Besides, we also discussed some long-term perspectives for academia. For the professorship, it is not supposed to be only for job application, but also for the career, like how to supervise a group, how to actually resolve conflicts among people with different cultures, etc.
Jian-Jia: Do you think those are helpful for also your career at this moment?
Pin-Jung: I think they are really helpful to be honest, because I think as a junior researcher, we probably know how to do research in our own field, but we never really know how to become a leader. So I think those are very important tips that we got during this mentoring program. Although back then I tried to learn, I didn’t really pay so much attention because I thought my first step is to at least get a position. But then now thinking back, such information is actually more important for my future career.
Jian-Jia: Can you give concrete examples on the modifications you made after the mentoring program?
Pin-Jung: Yeah, I think during this program we learned how to write all the required documents, including like research proposal, cover letter, teaching statement, all these things. I remember one main thing I modified was on the teaching statement, because back then I didn’t really know what the teaching statement is about. We usually are familiar with writing research proposals but not about teaching plans. I learned a lot about making it more concrete and having just a few lines with maybe like big topics and a little bit of explanation with some examples.
Jian-Jia: If I remember correctly, it’s to focus on the philosophy.
Pin-Jung: Right. And not about the courses you can offer. Originally, I put a lot of details, like, I want to teach this course with what information, the second course, what I want to put there. But then
after the mentoring program, I really knew that this is not about this because no one really cares about what course I want to teach, what’s the contents, etc., but how I want to teach it. So I think that’s the most helpful thing I had because I have never written this kind of teaching proposal.
Jian-Jia: How can you suggest a member of the European Taiwanese Association for Science and
Technology e.V. to better utilize similar services for making their career?
Pin-Jung: The very first time I heard about this association was too late for me to attend the annual meeting (2022). So I actually started attending this event in the following year (2023). After the annual meeting, I learned about the mentoring program and I thought actually that was what I really needed, because back then, I already knew what I want to do for my career. But I didn’t know the exact way to go. And I thought it was a very good chance that we can have the opportunities to learn from a lot of professors. So actually, my recommendation would be that when there is a chance that there are some professors who would volunteer to provide these kinds of events, one should always grab the chance, because it’s not something that we can have very often.
Jian-Jia: You have recently received the Yushan Young Fellow. How does the European experience help you achieve the distinction?
Pin-Jung: It’s probably not really due to my experience in Europe but because of the people I worked with. In the group that I used to work with, we not only have to do our own research, but we already
started helping a lot our boss to do like research proposal writing and also all the teaching duties. I think all these experience really fostered me to get this fellowship or to be distinguished from the
others. Because I also heard some of my colleagues, who work in different universities. They probably do very good research, but they don’t have much experience on doing other things except
for their own research. So, of course, back then I did not enjoy such activities because I thought they are not relevant to our research. But now that I think about it, at least, I had the chance to learn how
to do all these things, which is what we need now.
Speakers
Pin-Jung Chiu (https://www.phys.ntu.edu.tw/enphysics/pin-jung.chiu.html) is Assistant Professor at
Department of Physics, National Taiwan University and receives 2024 Yushan Young Fellow, Ministry of
Education (Taiwan). She received her Ph.D. from ETH Zurich in 2021 and worked as a postdoctoral
researcher at University of Zurich in 2022-2024.
Jian-Jia Chen (http://daes.cs.tu-dortmund.de/jjchen) is Chair Professor of Design Automation for
Embedded Systems of Faculty of Informatics (Computer Science) at TU Dortmund. He is the founding
chair of ETAST e.V. (2022 – 2026).