As a world-class university dedicated to research and education, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is always proud of its top-notch faculty’s contribution. To recognize the faculty’s devotion and outstanding achievements, the School of Engineering has established new research excellence awards in 2011, for the first time. They are Distinguished Research Excellence Award, Research Excellence Award and The Young Investigator Research Award. They will be given on an annual basis.

The Distinguished Research Excellence Award honors a distinguished faculty member with exceptional research achievements and significant impact at the local and global scenes. It is the most prestigious awards among the three. The Research Excellence Award recognizes the efforts of an outstanding faculty member with a proven record of research excellence. The Young Investigator Research Award recognizes the achievements of a promising and rising faculty member.

List of Awardees:

Distinguished Research Excellence Award
Hoi Sing Kwok, Dr William M W Mong Chair Professor of Nanotechnology of Electronic and Computer Engineering

Research Excellence Award
Guohua Chen, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Qian Zhang, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering

The Young Investigator Research Award
Matthew McKay, Assistant Professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering

The awardees were selected by the Research Award Committee which was chaired by Prof Joseph Lee, HKUST Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies. “With many highly-qualified nominees who are top scholars in their fields, the selection process had been competitive and rigorous. I am very pleased to see colleagues honored with this recognition of their significant contributions in terms of both academic achievement and impact to industry and society,” Prof Lee said.

Prof Khaled Ben Letaief, Dean of Engineering, added “As one of the best engineering schools in the world, we have been driving forward global changes through producing very high-impact research and breakthroughs. I take great pride in the achievements of our Engineering faculty and believe that the awards will further enhance the School’s research competitiveness as well as drive the School to greater heights of achievements in research and education”.