News & Stories

Prof Nancy Ip, Dean of Science and Chair Professor of the Division of Life Science, discusses what drives her on in her stellar international research career in neuroscience at HKUST. Editor: You were born and educated in Hong Kong and then went to the US for higher education. What brought you back to Hong Kong? Prof Ip: I joined HKUST in 1993 when the University was still in its very early stages. I had received my PhD in pharmacology from Harvard University, and worked in the biotechnology industry in New York. I was attracted by HKUST’s vision and wanted to contribute what I had learned to train the next generation of scientists in Hong Kong. Editor: As Hong Kong’s first specifically research-oriented university, what do think HKUST has achieved?

There was something for all connected with HKUST to smile about at the recent 2011 Young Scientists Awards organized by the Hong Kong Institution of Science. Our doctoral students swept ALL the top honors in the annual contest. Chen Jiefei, Department of Physics, received her award in the Physical/Mathematical Science category for a study reaffirming Einstein's theory that nothing travels faster than light in a vacuum. The winners of the Life Science category were Alan Wong Siu-lun and Wu Lin, Division of Life Sciences, for enhancing understanding of Parkinson's disease and deaf-blindness respectively. These three were joined by Li Dong, Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, who was awarded the main accolade in the Engineering Science category for advancing optical microscopy technology, a driver of major developments in biological science and medicine.

Ms Lin Wang, a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has received the Chinese Youth Science and Technology Innovation Prize in recognition of her outstanding achievements in innovative science. Ms Wang also became the only young scientist in Hong Kong to receive the Young Scientist Award this year. The Young Scientist honor, presented by the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS), was awarded in recognition of her breakthrough research on the study of two-dimensional graphene structures containing resonant impurities, and their novel properties and physical mechanisms.

"2011 was a great year in the HKUST story. Not only did the University celebrate its 20th Anniversary since courses first began in 1991, HKUST also became the No.1 ranked university in Asia . That's right! Just two decades after it was founded, the University was named the leading School in the region in the reputable Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asian University Rankings. The previous year, we were ranked second.

Prof He Xuhua, Associate Professor of Mathematics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) was awarded the prestigious 2013 Morningside Gold Medal of Mathematics. The announcement was made at the opening of the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM) in Taipei, Taiwan. Prof He is the only scholar in Hong Kong receiving this prestigious award this year. The ICCM is held triennially, and the Morningside Gold Medal of Mathematics is to honor mathematicians of Chinese descent, under the age of forty-five, for their exceptional achievements in mathematics. Both the ICCM and the Morningside Medals of Mathematics are modeled after the renowned older quadrennial International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), and the Fields Medal, a mathematics equivalent of a Nobel Prize.

Two pioneering research projects at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) led by Prof Che-ting Chan, Chair Professor of the Department of Physics and Prof Mingjie Zhang, Kerry Holdings Professor of Science of the Division of Life Science were awarded close to $100 million in total by the University Grants Committee (UGC) under its Sixth Round of Areas of Excellence (AoE) Scheme.

Prof Ping Sheng, Prof Che-ting Chan and Prof Jason Yang of the Department of Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) were jointly awarded the inaugural Brillouin Medal by the International Phononics Society (IPS) for their discovery of locally resonant acoustic / elastic metamaterials and related contributions. Prof Sheng and Prof Chan attended the second International Conference on Phononic Crystals / Metamaterials, Phonon Transport & Optomechanics (Phononics 2013) held at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in early June to receive the Medal and deliver the Award Lecture.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) was just named the top university in Asia for the third straight year by the highly reputable Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) University Rankings: Asia. Mr Ben Sowter, Head of Research at QS Intelligence Unit highlighted that Asian higher education is undergoing a rapid transformation, and China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea are at the forefront of the assault on the global academic leadership positions. There are already 17% more Asian universities in the global top 200 since the recession, and the next two decades could see leading US and European universities objectively overtaken.