Prof Qiang Yang has been elected as Fellows of the International Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPR) and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

He was recognized for his significant contributions to data mining and transfer learning. The prestigious biennial IAPR Fellow Award was introduced in 1994 to acknowledge the distinguished contributions to the field of pattern recognition and to IAPR activities. According to the Constitution and Bylaws of IAPR, the number of fellows elected every two years must not exceed 0.25% of the total IAPR membership. Both service to IAPR and scientific contributions to the field of pattern recognition are taken into account in the selection process.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the largest non-profit making science and engineering professional organization. 701 members across the globe were elected as AAAS Fellows this year. Only 2 among the fellows are from institutions in Hong Kong. With his contribution to artificial intelligence and knowledge-discovery in databases, Prof Qiang Yang is honoured to be one of the fellows.

The fellows will be recognized for their contributions to science and technology at AAAS Annual Meeting in February 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. They will receive a certificate and a blue and gold rosette as a symbol of their distinguished accomplishments.

Prof Yang is a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Director of Noah's Ark Research Lab of Huawei. His research interests include Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining, with specialization in transfer learning and sensor-based activity recognition. He is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist.