FANG Tianfeng, a 8th-dan professional with bachelor’s degree, is an assistant professor of USTB and a teacher in the coach training class of the Chinese Weiqi Association (CWA).

He joined the Shanxi Weiqi Team in 1975 and then the Chinese National Weiqi Team in 1978. He was the winner of the 1985 National Weiqi Individual Match, 1986 National Rapid Weiqi Match, and among the top 16 players in the 2016 ENN Cup World Weiqi Open Tournament. Once he worked as head coach of CITIC Group Team and Shanxi Women’s Team in China Weiqi League (CWQL).

He attended Shanxi University in 1989, majoring in Computer Science, entered USTB in 1994 for research and development of human-agent go-playing system in the Institute of Intelligence, Language and Computer Science. He was reassigned to the School of Humanities and Social Science in 2000 where he began to research and lecture on the courses of Weiqi and Chinese Culture and Elementary Theories of Weiqi in the Art Center. Meanwhile, his weiqi courses were also offered in universities including Peking University and Tsinghua University, making Fang a major force for weiqi to be included in higher education. He later won the Gong Yuzhi Teaching Award in 2016.