News & Stories

Professor Irene Lo of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has been elected as an Academician (Technical and Environmental Sciences) of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA). She is the first Hong Kong scholar inducted into the EASA. Based in Salzburg, Austria, the EASA is an interdisciplinary network of scholars from various fields focusing on scientific, social, cultural and ethical issues. The Academy’s seven branches include humanities, medicine, arts, natural sciences, social sciences/law and economics, technical and environmental sciences, and world religions. As of today, it has more than 1,500 members, including 29 Nobel Laureates.

Prof Wenkai He, Associate Professor from the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), became a co-winner of 2014 Barrington Moore Book Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) on comparative and historical sociology. He is the first scholar from a non-American university to have won this prestigious award. Prof He’s publication “Paths Toward the Modern Fiscal State”, which compares the history of modern public finance between England, Japan and China, is hailed by his peers as “a genuinely important piece of scholarship that has the potential to become a benchmark in the literature.” It is now an assigned reading for postgraduate students in several top American universities including the University of Chicago.

Prof Yilong Han, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) was awarded the 2014 Achievement in Asia Award (AAA) for his distinguished contributions in melting transition, glass transition and the observation of geometrical frustration through creative experiments in colloidal dynamics. The award was shared by Prof Han and Prof Wang Yao, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Hong Kong. Presented by the International Organization of Chinese Physicists and Astronomers (OCPA), the annual award acknowledges only one or two Chinese scientists below 50 years of age and working in Asia for their outstanding achievements in the field of physics and astronomy. Prof Han will receive his award at the meeting of the American Physics Society in March 2015.

A group of researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has become the member of a team of physicists from Hong Kong, who has now formally joined one of the most prestigious physics experiments in the world – a top particle physics experiment. Following a unanimous vote of approval today by its Collaboration Board, ATLAS has accepted the Hong Kong team as a member.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) undergraduates have achieved the best results ever in the CIMA Global Business Challenge in Hong Kong. One team took the championship title and the other was the second runner-up. To complete an impressive performance, an HKUST student was named the “Best Future Business Leader”. The CIMA Global Business Challenge is organized by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), a professional body of management accountants with more than 218,000 members and students worldwide. Its annual competition is designed to test undergraduate students’ skills and knowledge in all areas of business management through an assessment of professional competence in management accounting. Teams of four are asked to prepare and present recommendations in a business scenario.

MBA students from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) recently took home the championships of the Sofaer International Case Competition in Israel and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Case Competition in Hong Kong. This extends their winning streak to four competitions this Spring semester. The annual Sofaer International Case Competition, organized by Tel Aviv University, challenges MBA students from around the world with a real business case that focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship. This year, the competition asked contenders to propose a go-to-market strategy for an ultra-sound surgery method created by an Israeli medical technology start-up called InSightec. The procedure is used to remove uterine fibroids and bone tumors.

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) – a signature program at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to give undergraduate students an early taste of research under the guidance of faculty members, has nurtured many young talented researchers since its launch in 2005.  Year 2 Physics student Ho-tat Lam, champion of the University Research Award this year, will attend two international conferences this summer to share with scholars worldwide his new research findings.

A team of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) students won the grand prize at a highly challenging MBA competition organized by the Columbia Business School in the US. It was the first time that a team from Hong Kong joined this invitation-only event, which is open only to the top business schools in the world. Columbia's Global MBA Competition brings together the world's brightest MBA students to test their business aptitude in a two-day contest. The competition consists of three events in three completely different areas: a case analysis, an entrepreneurial pitch, and a negotiation competition.