Four HKUST Scholars Elected as ACM Fellows 2025 for Outstanding Research Achievements in Computer Science
Four scholars from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have been honored as Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest professional organization in computer science. ACM has named 71 new Fellows globally this year, and among the 12 Fellows based in Asia, four are from HKUST.
HKUST’s honourees include Prof. CHENG Tim Kwang-Ting, Vice-President for Research and Development, Chair Professor of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering and Department of Computer Science and Engineering; Prof. JIA Jiaya, Chair Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Director of the Von Neumann Institute; Prof. YI Ke, Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering; and Prof. XIONG Hui, Associate Vice-President (Knowledge Transfer) and Chair Professor of the Thrust of Artificial Intelligence at HKUST (Guangzhou).
Their outstanding contributions include advancements in automation design and software-hardware co-design of electronic circuits and computing systems; innovations in computer vision through segmentation, scene parsing and texture analysis; significant contributions to the theory and practice of database query processing; as well as developments in AI and mobile computing.
Prof. Tim Cheng is a leading authority in electronic design automation and software-hardware co-design for computing chips and systems. He has extensive experience in fostering cross-disciplinary research collaborations and has also made significant contributions to computer vision and medical image analysis. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences, and the School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo. His impactful work has earned him numerous accolades, including the ACM SIGDA Pioneering Achievement Award, the China Computer Federation Award for Overseas Outstanding Contribution, the Pan Wen Yuan Foundation Award for Outstanding Research, and over a dozen best paper awards at major conferences and journals. Additionally, he has successfully translated several of his inventions into commercial products.
Prof. Cheng is deeply honored to be elected as an ACM Fellow. He stated, “This recognition is a testament to my team’s efforts in electronic design automation and software-hardware co-design of electronic circuits and computing systems over the years. We will continue to promote interdisciplinary research collaborations and advance the development of electronic design automation and software-hardware co-design for AI computing chips.”
Prof. Jia Jiaya is an expert in computer vision, language, and deep learning, and is an IEEE Fellow. His research interests span image and video reasoning, VLMs, multi-modal AI, and generative methods. His papers have been cited over 100,000 times on Google Scholar, with an H-index exceeding 120. Prof. Jia has received numerous awards, including the SIGGRAPH Asia Test-of-Time Award in 2023 and 2024, as well as the NPAR Best Paper Award in 2012. He has been named among the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists by Stanford University for multiple years. Prof. Jia is also the founder of SmartMore, a unicorn focusing on advancing global Industry 4.0 through intelligent technologies, products, and solutions.
Prof. Jia stated, “This honour will inspire us to continue our efforts in applying computer vision and deep learning to real-world scenarios. I sincerely appreciate the unwavering support we have received from HKUST and our partners over the years. We will continue to drive innovation, inject new momentum into the development of artificial intelligence (AI), and make contributions to society.”
Prof. Yi Ke is a distinguished scholar in data management and theoretical computer science, with research spanning database theory and systems, query processing, data security and privacy, parallel and distributed algorithms, and data streams. His work emphasizes the interdependence between theory and practice in designing effective, practical algorithms. Prof. Yi has published approximately 160 papers in international conferences and journals, earning numerous accolades throughout his career. These include two SIGMOD Best Paper Awards, four SIGMOD Research Highlight Awards, a PODS Test-of-Time Award, a SIGMOD Best Demonstration Award, and a Google Faculty Research Award. He also served as the program chair for Symposium on Principles of Database Systems (PODS) 2026 and International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT) 2021 and has been the chair of the SIGMOD Research Highlight Committee since 2025.
Prof. Yi expressed his gratitude to ACM for the recognition and emphasized, “My team has always been dedicated to creating algorithms that are both theoretically robust and practically impactful. Moving forward, we aim to explore these areas even further, contributing to the advancement and prosperity of computer science.”
Prof. Xiong Hui is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, the China Computer Federation, and IEEE, as well as an ACM Distinguished Scientist. Focusing on AI and data mining, Prof. Xiong led numerous projects under the National Key R&D Program of China of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. His scholarly work has garnered over 62,000 citations on Google Scholar, with an H-index of 101. He has received several prestigious awards, including the ACM SIGKDD Service Award and the AAAI Best Paper Award. Additionally, Prof. Xiong serves as the Deputy Director of the Big Data Expert Committee of the China Computer Federation, is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Nature npj AI and has chaired major industry conferences such as KDD and ICDM multiple times.
Prof. Xiong remarked, “ACM is a globally esteemed academic institution in computer science, with a highly competitive selection process for Fellows. I am deeply honored to receive this important recognition. We will remain dedicated to pioneering advancements in AI and data mining and to contributing innovative ideas to the academic community.”
Established in 1993, the ACM Fellows Program represents the organization’s most esteemed membership category. It honors the top 1% of ACM members who have made exceptional contributions to the field of computer science through their innovations. This year, 71 new Fellows from 14 countries were selected. The 2025 ACM Fellows will be formally recognized during an awards banquet on June 13, 2026, in San Francisco.
About The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (https://hkust.edu.hk/) is a world-class university known for its innovative education, research excellence, and impactful knowledge transfer. With a holistic and interdisciplinary pedagogy approach, HKUST was ranked 6th in the QS Asia University Rankings 2026, 3rd in the Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings 2024, and 19th globally and 1st in Hong Kong in the Times Higher Education’s Impact Rankings 2025. Thirteen HKUST subjects were ranked among the world’s top 50 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025, with “Data Science and Artificial Intelligence” coming in 17th worldwide and first in Hong Kong. Our graduates are highly competitive, consistently ranking among the world’s top 30 most sought-after employees. In terms of research and entrepreneurship, over 80% of our work was rated “internationally excellent” or “world leading” in the Research Assessment Exercise 2020 of the Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee. As of January 2026, HKUST members have founded over 1,900 active start-ups, including 10 Unicorns and 21 exits (IPO or M&A).
(This news was originally published by the HKUST Global Engagement and Communications Office here.)