May Yu Lin rest in peace.  I will miss you forever.

May Yu Lin rest in peace. We will miss you forever.

       有些人，哪怕许久没有联系，想到他时，你会不由自主地微笑。有些人，哪怕多年未曾相见，再见面时，你丝毫不会有疏离感。而林宇，就是这样一个人，每次想到他，总觉得心中暖暖的，就像一缕阳光照进了心田。
       我们是在98年高二分班后认识的，他是走读生，我是寄宿生，原本交集不多，却因联手玩四国军旗成了黄金搭档。后来接触多了便常去他家里玩。他爸妈人很好，亲切随和，还经常找借口跑出去，把家里的空间留给我们，让我这个怕生的农村孩子从未有过胆怯或局促不安。
       现在想想，林宇骨子里的那种细腻和善良，就是与他父母一脉相承的。在大学里时，我们经常给彼此写信。每每在夜深人静的时候，对着信纸，心中想着远方的挚友，写下近来的琐事趣事，写下心中的烦恼迷茫，抒发一些对人生的感想，然后在日复一日的等待中收到对方的回信。
       这种感觉是美好的，以至于毕业多年后，我们依然尝试着写了几年信。那会也许是一时兴起，不用EMAIL，不用QQ和MSN，就拿起笔，写下彼此的生活，写下当时的心情，然后贴上邮票，漂洋过海，去到对方的身边。
       这几日，我拿出他写给我的信反反复复的看。好多次，我都有些恍惚，觉得他就坐在我对面，穿着格子衬衫，带着他标志性的微笑，跟我讲述近期的生活境况，以及对身边人和事的一些感想。
       他喜欢旅行，而我总是年复一年地待在原地。我曾跟他说，你就做我的眼睛，帮我好好看看外面的世界。他说好的，从此，每到一个地方，他都会给我寄来当地的明信片。
       2008年我买房子时，因为工资低，贷完款后还差点钱。考虑到他仍旧单身，决策相对简单，于是在要好的朋友中第一个问了他。他跟我说的第一句话是：谢谢你！我问他谢啥？他说感谢我在遇到困难时第一个想到他。是啊，虽然跟他性格截然不同，可我在遇到困难或有困扰的时候，总是会想到他。
       大学毕业那一年，有一阵子心情一直不好，有一天上完课，背着包便从南京跑到了合肥。那天晚上，在学校招待所，和他还有他的同学小云秉烛夜谈，直到天蒙蒙亮才睡去。当时谈的什么如今早记不得了，可这样的经历，这辈子都不会忘记。
       人与人的情感，来自于共同的经历。或长或短，我们曾经有过的交集，都在彼此的生命中留下了痕迹。这几日，悼文从四面八方飞来，见证了林宇人生不同阶段的生活，也让我们对他的了解更加丰富。 
       就拿我来说，我知道他很聪明，他也一直是我两个儿子崇拜的科学家叔叔，但我对他究竟有多厉害、多天才，并没有太多的概念。在我的心里，他只是一位亲切的老友，也是一个可爱且温润如玉的谦谦君子。如今，他又去远行了，只是这一次，他再不会给我寄明信片了！
                              2022-10-25 常熟

今天是12月16日了，距离你离开2个月了。虽然前面参加了澳洲举办的追思会，也一直在和陈谱沟通你回到常熟以后的安排，但是当今天陈谱告诉我这个网站，打开这个网页，看到你照片的时候，我内心还是无法接受你已经离开的事实。
2022年，因为各种神奇的因素，让身处上海的我一直觉得这是一个我以后不想再回忆的年份。然而，你的离开，给2022年添加了一个我永生难忘的印记。这一年，注定是我这一生刻骨铭心的一年，也注定是我在今后的日子会时常想起的一个年份。
如果时间能拨回到1996年，如果时间能拨回到1997年，或者时间能拨回到2000年，并且静止在那时，也是极好的。至少，你依然是那个满脸微笑的小胖子，依然是那个充满自信的大男孩；至少，我依然可以看到你和小朱下五子棋，把小朱逼的无力反抗的时候那夸张的笑容。
时常想起你在军训的时候唱歌的画面，也时常想起我们去参加希望杯，把到手的金牌变成银牌的糗事，也会想起一起参加各种竞赛，各种夏令营、冬令营。
也会记起你来南京，和我分享我们系孙院士到你学校做讲座的点点滴滴，那会儿还特别羡慕，因为孙院士都不曾给我们本校的学生开过讲座。
你去国外游学后，见面机会不多。本想着疫情好转后，可以来澳洲找你，让你带我去看看黄金海岸，看看大堡礁。却不曾想，你这么快的离去了。
也许，你是厌倦了这反复的疫情，到另一个地方去继续你的科研事业了。一路走好，安息

My name is LIAO Xiaoyun.  I am one of LIN Yu’s college classmates, who studied in the same major of computer science at the University of Science and Technology of China, and spent a four-year unforgettable college life together with him.

LIN Yu was one of the smartest, the most gifted and talented people I have ever met.  He was in first place in terms of four-year GPA among our 160 classmates.  Thus, he was the only one among us who obtained our university’s highest and best award, the Guo Moruo Scholarship. 

LIN Yu was a warm, helpful and responsible volunteer.  Before exams of college courses, particularly data structures and algorithms, he willingly spent his valuable time explaining complicated and difficult questions for other classmates, and even tried his best to meet everyone’s requests.

LIN Yu was an elegant, thoughtful and patient gentleman.  He cared a lot for other people's moods and emotions, and made sure people around him always feel comfortable. 

LIN Yu was like a nice brother who built and honored long lasting friendship.  At college, he frequently wrote letters on papers and sent physical mails to his high school friends in different cities, sharing his college life.  After college, I know that quite a few classmates, including myself, also received his handwritten letters and postcards, telling us about his interesting adventures of study, work and travel all over the world. 

LIN Yu was an idealist who also got things done.  While keeping his original intention and innocence, LIN Yu followed his heart, insisted on his dreams, and didn’t stop pursuing his dreams until his last minute.  Now, LIN Yu has been infinitely close to his big dreams.

LIN Yu was, is, and will be my role model.  I am so proud of him.  Our classmates are very proud of him.  Our college is proud of him.

The loss of such a good classmate, friend and brother is heartbreaking and sorrowful.  Life is like summer flowers blooming in the sky, and passing away is like autumn leaves falling into dust.  May LIN Yu Rest In Peace!  We Will Miss You!

我叫廖小云。我是林宇的一位大学同学，在中国科技大学同一个计算机专业学习, 跟他一起度过了四年难忘的大学生活。

林宇是我遇见过的最聪明智慧的一位才子。在我们160多位同学中，他四年成绩排名第一。因此，他是年级唯一的学校最高奖----郭沫若奖学金获得者。

林宇是一位热心助人负责任的志愿者。大学课程考试前,尤其是数据结构和算法，他都会自愿地花不少宝贵时间给同学们答疑解惑，尽力满足每一个人的需求。

林宇是一位温润儒雅、细致耐心的君子。平时一贯照顾别人情绪, 与他交往如沐春风。

林宇是一位非常念旧的好兄弟。在大学时，他经常亲笔写书信寄给在不同城市的高中朋友，分享他的大学生活。大学毕业后，我知道有不少大学同学，包括我自己，也收到林宇寄来的亲笔书信和明信片，告诉我们他在世界各地求学、工作和旅游的有趣经历。

林宇是一位理想主义者，也是一位实干家。在保持他的初心和童真的同时，林宇跟随自己心灵的召唤，坚持自己的理想，并为之发奋努力、奋斗不息，直到生命最后一刻。现在，林宇已经无限接近于他的远大梦想。

林宇是以前是、现在是、将来也是我的榜样。我为他感到如此骄傲。我们同学为他感到非常骄傲。我们大学为他感到骄傲。

失去如此一位好同学、好朋友、好兄弟是非常伤心、非常悲痛的。生似夏花绚满天，去如秋叶落尘烟。愿林宇一路走好！我们会想你的！

I must have met Yu first time when he gave his presentation at ANU about using de-brujin for genome assembly of noise long reads... must have been late 2015 or so. Sylvain Foret was still around and Sylvain thought Yu was brilliant in his approach to genome assembly. In the meantime I pumped into Yu every now and again on campus over the years since his arrival at ANU. Everyone spoke very highly of Yu. He was highly regarded for his brilliance and kindness.

In 2019, we got to know each other better as he started teaching into my new BIOL8002 master level course at ANU. He took on the genome assembly and metagenomics component. Yu was contagious with his enthusiasm for teaching and his support for his students. It was a pleasure to sit in the first year's iteration of the course and to learn from Yu during his lecturers.

Since then I was lucky to be able to extend my collaboration with Yu over the years. He became more interested in the challenges our fungi pose for genome assembly and haplotype phasing. I was so happy and lucky that I found a brilliant computer science collaborator that was kind and interested in the genomes of fungi. We went on to write several grants together some still outstanding to date. Yu grew more confident over the years and especially once he had finally gotten his tenure after a very hard and long road in 2021.

Yu brought the safety and comfort to explore something new over many years ahead. We started to supervise several students together the last several months and I was looking forward to years of friendship, silliness, kindness, and intellectual explorations.

Yu had a great personality and he was great to hang out with. I remember the chats about his family and upbringing over dinner. When he shared private moments of childhood and past. It was so obvious that he loved his parents dearly. The sound in his voice made it clear that he missed them after all those COVID-19 induced restrictions prohibited him to travel to China over the last several years.

Really I am lost for words and that is all I could muster.

節哀順變 to Yu's parents. Losing a child in a foreign far away country is unimaginable. From one parent to another we all feel for you.

Ever since I heard about Yu's death some questions and wonders are wandering my head at night and at day. Should I have held in to tell Yu to hold in. I will never know. I have to keep it with Yu's goodbye phrase "Let's stay in touch".

Rest in peace my lovely friend, colleague, and collaborator. Let the wind, the earth, the water, and the sun carry your spirit to new heights. We will carry you in our hearts.

路走好

I am not a student in his course or under his supervision. A friend of mine is a student in Yu's course. Since I was worried about my presentation, my friend introduced him and guaranteed that he was willing to have a chat. So I had met Yu once. He gave me many constructive suggestions on my slides, although it's not in his field. I was surprised by how creative and knowledgeable he was. His cheerful and witful comments also brought lots of fun. I always remember how he encouraged and inspired me.

As far as I can recall, he was the only one who could be so helpful and supportive, without any reservation, to a stranger. He was a decent researcher and open to all research topics. I thought we could continue our discussion sometime. However, we never know which comes first, accident or tomorrow. I share sorrow with everyone who lost their friend, lecturer, supervisor, and family. 

我不是他的学生。我的一个朋友是。由于我担心我的演讲，我的朋友介绍了他并保证他愿意聊天。所以我见过他一次。他给了我许多建设性的建议，尽管这不在他的领域。我对他的创造力和知识渊博感到惊讶。他欢快而机智的评论也带来了很多乐趣。我一直记得他是如何鼓励和激励我的。

据我所知，他是唯一一个可以毫无保留地对陌生人如此乐于助人和支持的人。他是一位很好的研究员，对所有研究课题都持开放态度。我想我们可以在某个时候继续我们的讨论。然而，我们永远不知道哪个先发生，事故或明天。我与所有失去朋友、讲师、导师和家人的人分享悲伤。

A few years before I met Yu, I was working on a particular problem in cancer genomics where the DNA is rearranged due to breaks. I came across a classic idea of representing this problem as a graph problem, and discovered Pavel Pevzner's online course, which introduced me to a related concept (a De Bruijn graph), which I felt was somehow different.

When I relocated to Canberra and heard of this amazing person who had just joined ANU from Prof. Pevzner's group, I was so excited to meet someone who was an expert in De Bruijn graphs. Yu was very humble in our meeting at Coffee Grounds that morning. I was enthusiastically trying to tell him about my brilliant idea of DNA breakpoints, while he patiently waited and heard my whole story. He kindly asked probing questions and gently pointed out where I was wrong. He then went on to educate me about breakpoint graphs, and how they were equivalent to De Bruijn graphs, something that he had just published.

In that cold and sunny Canberra winter morning, I knew I had met someone special. My grandmother used to say that a pot full of water makes no sound. Yu is so knowledgeable, yet humble and kind. He is sorely missed.

本人于去年在课堂上（BIOL8002）认识林宇老师。尽管林老师只进行了为期三周的教学，但其授课时的内容与技巧、兴奋的神态使我印象深刻。即使是远程授课，也难以掩盖其对科学研究、对教学的热爱。时隔一年，虽然我与林老师没有更多的交集，但当时林老师身上所蕴含的学识与热情，无疑是鼓舞我能够坚持生物信息学学习与研究的动力之一。由是感激。

       旬日前，于计算机学院教学楼，我有幸在学校遇见林老师。林老师一如我印象之中，健谈、干练。怎叹世事难料，天妒英才，第一次见面时，林老师竟已不久于人世。初见即时诀别，叹惋、痛心、无措之情，难以言表。

       同为独在异乡的游子，本人深知林老师英年早逝，对于其父母是如何残酷的命运。想必千言万语，也难以平复林老师的至亲内心的伤痛。林老师生前，对学界、对学校、对学生，留下了永恒的贡献与财富，无愧于天地。万望节哀顺变，以缓丧子之痛。

I enrolled the course COMP6240 in the first semester of my master's study. And at that time, I noticed that Dr. Yu was a great lecturer and researcher after I searched his biography from the website. After the first semester, I sent an email to him and said that I wanted to join his team. I was so grateful that Yu and Hansheng had a zoom chatting with me and gave me a chance and let me begin my research career.  Yu talked with me several times before I started my project and gave me a lot of help to let me be more familiar with bioinformatics. I still remember he replied to me exciting when I sent him the result of the experiment. I was deeply sad when Benjamin told me his passing. Each time I together with Yu was a happy experience and I would never forget that. 
Thank you, Dr. Yu. R.I.P.

I have had the pleasure of working with Yu Lin in HDR related matters for the school for almost 2 years. I am overseeing the HDR for the school, while Yu Lin is the HDR convenor for two research clusters in the school: Computational Science and Data Science & Analytics. I really appreciate Yu Lin's care for the role. Things are always done promptly. I never need to hassle or remind him of pending eforms. In fact, I believe he is more on top of the eforms than I am. He is well aware of issues with students in the research cluster he is handling and try to help them as much as he can. When there's a relatively critical problem with students in the cluster, we only need to discuss once, and the next time I met him, he would be telling me the issues have been resolved. Impressive reliability! You will be forever missed. 

I’m deeply sad and heartbroken with Yu’s sudden passing.

I first met Yu in the early 2018, a few days after I moved to ANU. I had known about him for his work in Bioinformatics and especially in Phylogenetics from his PhD. My impression from this meeting was that Yu is very enthusiastic and energetic; he suggested some ideas to me and quite keen to take up new ideas. He’s always friendly with a big smile. From that time on I knew that Yu would be one of my best colleagues at the ANU. And this is still true until today.

Yu is an outstanding supervisor. We went on to co-supervise a few students, from undergrad to postgrad and PhD levels. Yu was always a critical thinker in all these projects. He provided a lot of valuable suggestions to the students. While being critical, he was also positive and knew how to guide an inexperienced student into a successful outcome. 

He was also an excellent educator. When I took up teaching a large course of similar size like Yu’s course, he gave me a lot of helpful advice and hints, how to manage a large and diverse cohort of students and tutors. Whenever I had a difficulty teaching situation, I can come to Yu for help, and problem solved.

Yu was also a lovely friend. We used to have monthly catch-up lunches, pre- and post-COVID. I enjoyed talking with Yu about many things; he is the only one in the ANU I can share with.

Yu and I went together on a business trip to Adelaide in June 2022. Our presentations matched so well with each other, as his meta-genomics methods would produce data that can be pipelined to my phylo-genomics methods. From that trip, we decided to establish a You&Me seminar series (sounding like Yu&Minh).

But now that You&Me series can never become true.

My last email with Yu just 3 days before his passing looked normal. I’m still shocked that he’s gone. Yu’s so young and talented. Why him? 

Yu Lin, a great colleague, supervisor, educator and friend. You will be missed forever.

To Dr Yu Lin's family, I extend my deepest condolences. As a father, the loss of a child is unfathomable, and I can only imagine the grief you must be feeling.

I extend my deepest condolences to all of Dr Yu Lin's colleagues and friends. I consider myself fortunate to be one of these. Like you all, I feel a great sense of loss that such a kind, smart and likeable man has passed away.

While there was much more to Yu than his work, that work and his students and colleagues were such a point of joy for him that I want to highlight the lasting impact he has had.

I first encountered Yu in 2013 when I read a publication from his doctoral research. At the time, I had been using the classic Robinson-Foulds measure for comparing graphs and observed the poor behaviour of this measure on empirical data. In searching for an alternate, I came across Lin, Rajan, & Moret (2012) A metric for phylogenetic trees based on matching. On reading this work, I was struck by how obvious the measure was, and I recall feeling amazed that no one else had thought of it in the 30 years since Robinson-Fould was published. To see what no one else had seen is a testament to his ability for deep insight. (As a side note, I intend to implement this measure in my software library for genomics, and name it the Lin-Rajan-Moret distance.) This and his many other academic contributions will stand the test of time.

In the last year, Yu and I embarked on numerous collaborative research projects to such an extent that we worked together many hours each week. That time confirmed my initial impression that Yu possessed an incisive intellect and an openness to new ideas.

This time working closely with Yu also revealed a man who cared deeply about teaching, his students and his colleagues. I witnessed many acts of consideration, kindness and empathy for his students, past and present. I was also privileged to experience his dry, understated humour and to see him laugh. I will greatly miss working with him and developing our friendship.

His selfless contributions to helping others ensure that Yu will not be forgotten.

Vale Yu Lin.

Dr. Yu was a mentor to me. 

A reachable teacher
He was my course convenor when I took the relational database course in 2018. That was my first year studying and living in a foreign country. He was the only Chinese lecturer in all courses I enrolled at that time and looked so kind and helpful. So I attended a lot of drop-in sessions intentionally and we sometimes discussed things not related to the course, in Chinese, which made me feel not lonely anymore. Gradually, we knew each other better and had lunches together. Asian Tiger is still here and the lunchbox was much cheaper than its price now, but you are not around anymore.

A responsible convenor
Due to COVID, we had not seen each other for a while. I completed my master's degree and started my Ph.D. remotely. I returned to Canberra in March 2022 and met him again in our office. He invited me to be his tutor for COMP2420 and I was glad that I can help. During this period, I almost saw him every day and met him weekly for tutoring work. He is the most responsible convenor I ever seen. As a student or tutor, we could contact him anytime and he replied to messages e.g. email, teams, wattle, literally in seconds. For each assignment, he spent so much effort, even students might not know. For instance, before assignment 1 was released, he asked tutors to build a question bank in case students can find the same questions from previous years. He always said the purpose of assignments is not the score, but to discover the problems for students.

A warm friend
Whenever I asked for help, he gave me a hand with no doubt. Whenever I apply for any applications that required a referee, e.g. scholarship, Ph.D. and research programs, he came to my mind first. He always completed the letter quickly and gave me strong support. He also helped me a lot in life. Two weeks ago, I received a parking infringement and I intended to apply for the exemption, which required a witness. So I asked him to witness me finish the application. He agree gladly and told me that feel free to ask for his help.  The file with his signature is still on my officedesk. I am sure that I am not the only student he helped and he was so kind. I will keep that signature forever and become a person like him to help others in the future.

A respectable supervisor
He is a learner and problem-solver. As we are in the same school cluster and same office, I invited him to join my PhD supervisory panel. Sometimes I was anxious about my PhD journey, but he always encouraged me in actual actions rather than talks. As he said, I did not study machine learning at the very beginning. But he learned piece by piece and successfully integrated his domain knowledge of biology into machine learning. I know that he just published a paper in NeurIPS 2022 and he planned to have a meeting that shares his experience with me this month. When I am writing this, I still can't believe that we lost him forever.

I miss you so much, Yu.  

I am a student sitting on the fourth floor of the Hanna Neumann Building. Dr Yu Lin's office is on the same floor.

Yu is the HDR convenor of the Data Science cluster. He is very supportive and responsive. I am not in his research group, but he can still recall the annual report I submitted last year. As a relatively new student at ANU, he gives me a lot of suggestions and advice. All of this helps me a lot. I am so grateful to him for being the HDR convenor in our cluster.

Yu is a great researcher, and he also integrates his passion into teaching and supervision. I have seen several times the light in his office is on, even on Saturday. He is a well-known researcher, but he is typically modest about his achievements. He always says, "This is collaborative work with my students. I am so proud of my students, and sometimes I even learn a lot from them. "

Yu is easy-going and happy to communicate with students. He is a foodie and always shares his experiences with all kinds of cuisines from all over the world. I still remember he offered me a cup of Indian coffee one afternoon. It was a bit bitter but really tasty.

When writing this story, I also read the stories shared by his students, colleagues and friends. I am deeply impressed. Yu is such a good person and he is warm-hearted, friendly, and kind to everyone, even those people he does not know. His passing away is a great loss to the school, to the field, and to the community.

R.I.P.

Dr. Yu Lin was my associate supervisor during my MPhil period.

As a supervisor, Yu was lovely to work with. My primary supervisor, Qing, praised Yu for being incredibly smart when recommending I put him on my supervisory panel. He truly was. I sometimes took my notebook to Yu’s office to discuss the peculiar topics I studied. Surprisingly, just by following my cryptic explanations, Yu could always instantly grasp my ideas, remind me of tricky situations, and even offer coding advice. I doubt I could have my topics finished without his supervision. To mention a few, it was Yu who spent half a day reorganizing my first short paper for submission (though it was rejected). It was Yu who sacrificed his new year vacation to assist me with writing up proofs and submitting my first full paper in the Graduate House's common room. It was also Yu who gave me suggestions after my oral presentation on how to perform better at the first conference I attended.

After school, Yu brought everyone happiness since he was young at heart. He joined us (me and several members of our group) for meals, board games, and bubble tea rather frequently. I still recall the trip we took to Costco. Yu introduced a lot of delicious snacks, and each of us returned with a hot dog and a cup of cola.

With all these memories in mind, it is really hard for me to accept Yu‘s passing.
Yu, I would like to express my deep appreciation to you for guiding me on my road to research and also for kindly supporting my life.
Hope you can rest in peace.

I got to know Yu when I joined ANU in 2017. Although we did not interact very often, I always had a very good impression of him on the occasions that we met. He always came across as very intelligent, conscientious, and passionate about his research and teaching, and he seemed to be always calm and collected even during a very challenging time due the COVID lockdown that affected us all. It was through one of Yu's excellent seminars on solving genomic puzzles that I learned the complexity of the field of genomic data analysis and truly appreciated his contributions in the field. Yu was a valued member of the School, a great colleague and a great academic. He will be missed by all of us. 

My first meeting with Yu happened in 2013 when he joined my lab at University of California San Diego as a postdoctoral researcher. He came to San Diego after completing his Ph.D. at EPFL in Lausanne under the supervision of Bernard Moret, the world leader in the studies of genome rearrangements. By the time of completing his Ph.D., Yu published 25 (!) bioinformatics papers. With such an outstanding record, he would be welcomed to any lab in the world – I got so lucky that he selected my lab!  In fact, computer science students with an outstanding publication record like this sometimes bypass the postdoc stage and apply directly for faculty positions. However, Yu wanted to further develop his career by diving into diverse areas of bioinformatics.

Working with Yu was a great pleasure – he was a deep thinker and an excellent problem-solver - I learned a lot from him!  He was an incredibly kind and humble person – always with a cheerful smile on his face and always willing to help other lab members. He learned how to be a good Ph.D. advisor well before his started his professorship in Australia – when Lianrong Pu (Ph.D. student from China) came to my lab, Yu immediately took her under his wing. They worked together on analyzing segmental duplications – enigmatic repeats that have been colonizing the human genome over millions of years. Yu was very generous, sharing his ideas with Lianrong, teaching her how to write a paper (published in Genome Research in 2018), how to prepare a talk, etc., etc., etc.  

Yu was very curious about everything – he loved traveling and he loved trying new food everywhere he traveled. Shortly after his arrival, I took him to Convoy street, a cluster of Asian restaurants in San Diego, in a hope to find good Chinese food that I thought he may be missing. We had a nice dinner but I learned that taking my Chinese students to Chinese restaurants in the US is a risky proposition – it is difficult to find anything comparable in quality to restaurants in China. The only other time we went together to a Chinese restaurant was when we had a dinner with Lianrong – and this time it was Yu who was selecting the restaurant – according to him, the best Chinese restaurant in San Diego.

After arriving to my lab, Yu started working on new algorithms for assembling genomes from long reads – one of the most algorithmically challenging problems in modern bioinformatics. But first, just within a year, we published a paper on the unexpected connections between two classical bioinformatics concepts – breakpoint graphs (the workhorse of genome rearrangement studies) and de Bruijn graphs (the workhorse of genome assembly studies). It turned out that these two concepts are nearly identical, a surprising connection that was overlooked in previous studies.  

After this theoretical study, Yu switched to a problem that required both algorithmic insights and good programming skills. He was the leader in our project on long-read genome assembly (published in PNAS in 2016), paving the way to the Flye genome assembler (published in Nature Biotechnology in 2018) that turned into the workhorse of many genome assembly projects (1400+ citations so far). He was the first to demonstrate how to apply de Bruijn graphs for assembling long error-prone reads, something that most people thought was an impossible task.

Yu worked very hard and had a superb work ethic – he was a wonderful colleague. I relied on him in all our projects - working with him was truly a pleasure. I missed him after he left for Australia in 2016 and was happy to meet him in April 2017 in Sydney. He wanted me to give a talk at ANU but my schedule was filled with talks in Sydney and Brisbane and we agreed that I will return and visit Canberra in a couple of years. COVID-19 postponed this trip but right after Australia lifted COVID-19 restrictions I wrote Yu that I am ready to visit him in Canberra in Spring 2022. He immediately responded on February 9, 2022:  

Hi Pavel,

You are definitely welcome to visit Canberra and give a seminar at ANU! When do you plan to come to Australia this year? I really look forward to seeing you this year. SmilingFace

Unfortunately, my plan to visit Australia in 2022 did not materialize and I instead started planning my Australian trip in March 2023…  

Dear Yu, I am so sorry that I did not make it to Australia to see you this year…

It was with great sadness and great shock to learn that Dr Yu Lin had passed away suddenly.  Yu was an outstanding researcher in the field of computational informatics and machine learning.   Although I only got to know him in person not long ago after I recently joined the ANU SoCo (from the ANU SoEn),  his reputation preceded him all the long.   He was known as a rising star among early-to-mid career researchers in the school and in his research field.   His recent tenure research seminar presentation was truly amazing and impressive.  He made significant contributions to our education program of ANU too, in his role as the education ambassador of SoCo.  His professionalism and services were highly praised.  His untimely passing away is a great loss to the school, to the field, and to the community.   Dr. Lin will be always remembered. R.I.P.   

I was submitting a paper tonight, and Yu is one of the co-authors. When I put his name and email address to the online submission system, I can still not believe that he has passed away. Our email communication stopped at 16:36 15th Oct. 2022 (GMT+8). He wrote “Let’s keep our fingers crossed” for a paper submission. And it is hard to image, just couple of hours later, he left.

I met Yu in Switzerland in 2008. I was not a very close friend of Yu in the very beginning. But with more and more chance to meet, I know Yu better. He is very clever, nice, warm and always ready to help others. We had some travel experience together, to Annecy and other Haute-Savoie regions in France, and Andalucía region of Spain. I can still remember we crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Ceuta, and drove in the villages of Spain during the night. We were in a very small village of Spain, where only one small restaurant in a petrol station was open, and without anyone can speak English. There were so many adventures and pleasures. In Lausanne, I remember Yu like the Thai restaurant close to his apartment a lot, and have invited me to have diners there.

In 2013, Yu left Switzerland to the States for post-doc study, and in 2015 he started his independent research in ANU. I also started to work in Fudan University in 2015. In the very beginning of my independent research, I focused on the data analysis for MALDI-TOF mass spectra of microbes. Yu, at that time, visited Shanghai in 2015. In my very small office, we had a lot of discussion on science with my students, Yi YANG and Zhuoxin CHEN. Yu gave a very nice presentation in the Institutes of Biomedical Sciences of Fudan University on the genome data assembly. Later on, based on this academic trip, we got two papers published on Analytical Chemistry about the algorithm development for MALDI-TOF-based bacterial identification. As I was trained as an analytical chemist, Yu helped a lot in building the computational mass spectrometry team in my lab. We continued our collaboration since then, and have already published three papers together, with two on Anal. Chem. and one on Nature Communications. We have still three joint-papers in preparation or under review and now our collaboration extended to microbiota research combining metaproteomics and metagenomics.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Yu never traveled back to China. Before that, we visited my lab 1 or 2 times per year. We had a lot of online meetings together, and Yu mentioned several times that he really wants to visit China. He said that he like the Shanghai hairy crab a lot, which is famous with a lake close to his home town. Now it is the best season in a year to enjoy the crab and he cannot enjoy anymore.

In the short but shining life, Yu brought a lot of help, happiness and warmness to others, and also made great contribution to the world with his scientific achievement. He will always be with us in memory.

Yu has been the convenor for Relational Database, passionately giving lectures to over 400 students in CECS every year. I grow from a freshman student taught by him in 2017,  a tutor guided by him in 2019 and 2020, and now a graduate. I would like to sincerely say "Thank you! Dr Yu Lin!"

Yu not only taught me professional knowledge but also inspired my university study habits. The course contents are very beneficial. I have revisited them recently during preparation for campus recruitment. I was at the 1st semester of my university in Australia when taking his course. I felt very nervous at studying in English, abstract concepts were very frightening at that moment. Yu kindly prepared recordings before lecture, reviewing contents and illustrating with examples at lectures. Comprehensive explanations and examples helped me to learn the way of comprehending concepts in English. It fixed me being overly dependent on translationos tools before.

During recent job interviews, I always mention my tutor experience at relational database. I am trully proud of it. Through tutoring, I have learned a lot and Yu has provided insightful guidance. The picture of Yu drawing on whiteboard showing how to explain a complex solution to students still lingers in my mind. 

I was a student in Yu's course COMP2400/6240 Relational Database back in 2018. I had a great semester with Yu and appreciated his approaches in teaching. He was very patient and kind, always happy to talk with students and help them when they faced difficulties. I still vividly remember he was walking around the CSIT computer labs to check if all the labs were going well. In the final exam of Yu's course, I did forget to write my university ID on the cover page of the exam script. To identify me, Yu spent more than three days with tutors to match the handwriting on the exam scripts and that on the submitted assignments. He finally located me by comparing the handwritings among hundreds of students. I was more than shocked when he emailed me about this, and I came to his office to confirm that was my exam script. I was super apologetic about this and kept saying sorry to Yu, but he did not blame me at all and comforted me patiently. This really struck me as I would never expect a lecturer would devote so much time just to identify an exam script without an ID on it. He could simply fail me but he did not. Even now, I still always remind myself of his rigorous attitude in academics when I am working as a tutor and research student in CECS. Yu was sadly missed, but he will always stay in my heart. 

In December 2021 Vijini and I left Canberra and moved to Adelaide. That was two months before we submitted our theses. Yu was super supportive towards our move and encouraged us telling "move early, settle, take a good rest and write the thesis. You'll have much better food and weather in Adelaide". He would often check on us to see if we travelled safe, or did we settle in well and what not. He was so kind, caring and understanding. 

He would often ask, "how is Adelaide, do you have friends?". We would say "It is good, food is great and you should definitely visit". Yu was a very social person. He would never pick or avoid anybody. And he was very keen to meet and greet people. So we were asking him "You should come, we can roam around, see the beach. When are you coming?". Vijini was super excited to have him meet her new supervisor at work. 

Finally, he visited us in June 2022. It took us six months of nagging for him to visit Adelaide.He was that comitted to work and helping students. We were so glad he did as we knew he would be busy from July with his teaching work. He stayed few days.

We visited few places, tasted some good South Australian wine and had a very nice dinner with few other collegues. It was a heart warming catchup. We roamed around the markets finding food. We talked about the new city, work and culture. We also had a nice walk in the beach.

Everybody who met Yu on his trip was super fond of him. For his work excellence and most importantly due to his nice personality. Working with Yu was a walk in the park. He would always help through hard bits. He would explain a million times without any temper at all. He appreciated small pleasures in having chit chats, coffee and food. At end of the day, on our way to his stay he told "I will be visiting Adelaide more often now, it is a good change.". "Yes Yu, you are very welcome at anytime. Just two hours" we'd tell him.

We planned to meet him this December at Canberra. We were excited about that, secretly we knew we'd be having hot-pot or the buffet or something even better. But today we are so sad, the excitement has left. It will never be the same without him. We won't have that special person visiting us in Adelaide anymore. We hope we'll cross paths again in the universe. 

We wish you peace Yu!

Yu was my primary supervisor at ANU and I learned a lot from him during my PhD. I remember the first meeting I had with him after finalising my topic. I was angry at myself at the end of the meeting and questioned my choice of wanting to do a PhD. Back then, I struggled in understanding very technical research papers and I would get demotivated. Yu was very kind and helped me develop those skills. At the end of that meeting, he would say "let's discuss like this so the both of us can learn from each other".

Yu would come to our desks and check on our work when he had time. When I go to his office to ask about things I didn't understand, he would come to my desk, sit down beside me, ask me to get a notebook and pen, and explain very technical things in a simple manner. Yu had a very unique talent for breaking down technically complex concepts in a way that the core concepts can be understood. The whiteboard in his office is always full of drawings of the things he explains to students. Doing research in an interdisciplinary field, it was amazing to see Yu give talks about our group's work in a manner anyone can understand.

By the time I reached the end of the third year of my PhD, Yu asked me and Anuradha to start looking for jobs. He even had us sit down with him and discuss different career options. We would print online job advertisements and take them to him to get his opinions about them. We learned so much from him, more than research, about career development and networking.

Even after I started my new job as a postdoc, he would often check in with me and ask how things are going with the new job. Although the work was not related to his interests, Yu would patiently listen, discuss things and even suggest to me resources that could help my work. He would always encourage me to promote my work and most of all be proud of my work. I always tell him about the awesome things I got to do at my new lab and he would be very happy for me. Yu invited me to join many grants with other researchers saying that it would be a great opportunity for my career development. We had big plans to collaborate with international researchers which I am determined to continue as a tribute to Yu. I know Yu would be proud and want me to continue the things he started.

Thank you so much Yu! I am truly honoured to have done my PhD under you. I wish you could have watched me graduate and been with me as I progress in my career. I miss you so much.

Dr Yu Lin and I joined the ANU RSCS community together in 2016. I have vivid memories of Yu's kind smile when Alistair as the school director introduced us two at Level 3 of the CSIT building. Since then, Yu and I grew together, with our group building activities, tenure track milestones, executive deliverables, and other todos tracking in sync. Often we encouraged each other, reflected together, or engaged in discussions about bio and health informatics. I am missing Yu so much and will continue to celebrate and recognise your achievements and collegiality. For example, see the brilliance of https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-019-0072-8 .

Anuradha and I joined Yu's lab in August 2018 as his second and third PhD students at ANU. After growing up for more than two decades with our families, leaving our parents and moving to a new country was hard. We didn't know what to expect and felt anxious. However, Yu being such a kind and loving person, made sure to give us a very warm welcome and that we settled in as smoothl as possible. He looked after us and became our parent/guardian in Australia.

On our way to Canberra, we had a transit of 15 hours in Perth and Yu very kindly booked us a hotel at the Perth airport. He also came to pick us up from the Canberra airport and dropped us off at the Airbnb place we had booked. The next day he took us for lunch, to get sim cards and showed us around the shops. He even lent us money to settle until we got our stipends set up.

He would very often invite us to his home for hot pot and it was amazing. He would spend a lot of time preparing the meat and vegetables to make sure they are perfect. While we joined him at Dickson shops to buy the necessary items for the hot pot, he would explain to us about the different food items. He would also tell about the history and origin of those items. For someone who didn't know a thing about Chinese cuisine, I learned a lot from Yu and he was an exceptional teacher.

The list keeps going. He would always go above and beyond to help us whenever we needed him. I could keep on writing about Yu's acts of kindness and compassion for millions of pages. We will always love him and remember his kindness!

Since the first day we (Vijini and I) met him, we knew he was a foodie. He celebrated all kinds of cuisines from all over the world. When we had deadlines, or before we leave the cold bushy capital on holidays, we would always spend a few quality hours together enjoying a new kind of cuisine. Our first hot-pot night is something I cherish even today, which I write with a heavy heart and shaky hands.

It was getting colder as we were passing the easter holidays in 2019. It was the best of times and we were a very small group of just three students, me, Vijini and Yu's first PhD student Yanbo Li. I remember Yu coming to us and telling "if you guys are available I want to treat you with a hot-pot". We knew nothing about it! he would go on and explain what it is, how it is done with so much excitement. "Of course Yu", we agreed.

He was an artisan in making meat, fish and shrimp balls. Little did we know, he had actually given a lot of his time crafting the table. He was quite proud of his food and we could not agree more on that. At that moment, he was a friend, mentor, parent and chef! Table was filled with casual conversation around weather, his travel, foodie talks and his past. We had a wonderful supper. I'd say, that was the first time I used a chopstick which I thought I must learn how to use. He was so kind that he checked on with us to see if we made it safe to home, as we all were new to Canberra. 

There began our foodie relationship with Yu. Since then, we have had numerous moments with Yu. We miss him, we miss him so bad!