Celebrating ECE PhD Graduate’s Exceptional Track Record in Research

(From left) Head of ECE Department Prof. Bert SHI, Dean of Engineering Prof Tim CHENG, awardee Dr. YU Xianghao, Prof. WANG Yu-Hsing, Chair of Engineering Research Committee, and Prof. ZHANG Jun, advisor of Dr. YU. [Download Photo]

Dr. YU Xianghao, a 2018 PhD graduate from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering (ECE), has been named the winner of the School of Engineering (SENG) PhD Research Excellence Award 2018-19.

Dr. Yu’s research during his PhD study was focused on millimeter-wave multi-input multi-output (mm-wave MIMO) communications and application of stochastic geometry in wireless network analysis. In particular, his work on hybrid precoding for mm-wave MIMO systems has received over 200 citations, which is one of the most cited papers on this topic and earned him a 2018 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award. He presented a follow-up work on hardware-efficient hybrid precoding at 2017 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), a flagship event of the IEEE Communications Society, and received the Best Paper Award.

Dr. Yu’s research on wireless network analysis is the first general framework for the tractable analysis of multi-antenna wireless networks, and he is a co-author of the monograph titled Stochastic Geometry Analysis of Multi-Antenna Wireless Networks. His research was also recognized by the Hong Kong Telecom Institute of Information Technology (HKTIIT) Post-Graduate Excellence Scholarship, and he was selected as one of the exemplary reviewers of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications for two consecutive years (2017-18).

Dr. Yu is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in Germany. He is supported by the Humboldt Research Fellowship, which is a highly competitive and prestigious recognition to researchers all over the world. He was invited to come back to HKUST to share his research experience in the walk of his research life on May 27, 2019.

In addition, Dr. YAO Quanming from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Dr. JIANG Haoran from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, both 2018 PhD graduates, are named first runners-up of the award for their research achievements.

The School of Engineering has established the PhD Research Excellence Award scheme since 2011 in recognition of the outstanding achievements by our PhD students and recent graduates. The awards are granted to those who have made influential contributions to their discipline during PhD studies at HKUST.