Prof. LU Mengqian Pioneers Research in East Asia Atmospheric Rivers

Adventurous and focused, Prof. Lu Mengqian enjoys exploring new research fields which give her a lot of space to wander. To her, the power of wandering is crucial for research discovery. [Download Photo]

Prof. LU Mengqian, now Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, told the unique story of a little girl in Qingdao with tremendous physical and intellectual potentials. Born to loving parents who were preoccupied with business endeavours, the young Lu was raised by grandparents. Her paternal grandfather, a mechanical engineer and a scholar, used to set up a big table at home to teach the six-year-old granddaughter mathematics, science and machinery design, including how mechanical gears worked. Her maternal grandfather, a veteran of the army, took the young girl to hike along steep slopes beyond her age to train up her body and perseverance. Her parents, while being attentive to her scores at school, were always supportive of their daughter who was energetic and independent.

Athlete training as “therapy”

At the age of 10, Prof. Lu was selected to join the country’s track-and-field training for young athletes. “It was like a contract between my parents and I: I continue to do well at school, and they will let me engage in athlete training.” She was the top pupil in elementary school.

Before long, she was admitted to the best middle school in the area under the special talent program as the junior champion in Qingdao and a hurdler at Professional City-Level Junior advancing to Provincial Athletics.

“I like to be excellent in everything,” she said. To prove that she did have the strong academic ability to attend the best middle school, she pushed herself to maintain top academic scores.

Thus for about seven years in a row, Prof. Lu went to school in the morning to learn Chinese, English and Mathematics. In the afternoon, she skipped classes to attend athlete training. At night, she made up for the missing classes in Physics, Chemistry and Nature by reading textbooks herself and doing homework.

“I was a very energetic youngster who could not sit still. The training turned out to be therapeutic,” she noted half-jokingly. “The afternoon training meant that I would be physically exhausted at night, so that I could stay calm and focussed on my evening studies.”

Joining HKUST: love at first sight

Starting from senior high, she gradually shifted her focus to the academics. With superb scores in China’s University Entrance Examination, Prof. Lu was expected to enter top universities in the Chinese Mainland. It was serendipity that she came across recruitment information from HKUST. “It was love at first sight. I was immediately attracted to the beautiful seaside campus.” She joined HKUST’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department as an undergraduate student, and is still grateful to the department today.

“The experience in Hong Kong is life-changing for me as a northerner,” she remarked. As one of the 165 mainland freshmen in 2005, she was an active founding member of the Mainland Students and Scholars Society. Inspired by a talk show on Phoenix TV, she became an editor and a disc jockey for People’s Campus Radio where she initiated and conducted a new Putonghua program to share perspectives on books such as Harry Potter.

“I love Hong Kong. Whereas Shanghai combines modern Chinese and modern Western elements, Hong Kong has the perfect mixture of classic China and classic West.”

With enriching campus life, she continued to be the top student throughout the undergraduate years. She garnered a number of scholarships as well as HKUST’s Academic Achievement Medal, the highest honor upon graduation in 2009.

In the final year, she became increasingly interested in water resources, climate and hydrometeorology. Courageous and determined, she went to Columbia University in New York to pursue PhD in Water Resources and Climate Risks. Without an undergraduate degree in the field, she tried to bridge the huge gap through self-learning and graduated with GPA 3.94 in 2014.

“It was very challenging and at times I doubted myself. Yet I never regret my decisions. This is what athlete training has taught me: Every success is built upon numerous failures. Even the sprinter Bolt had lost many games before the public knew him.”

Reflecting on her journey, Prof. Lu emphasizes how her time at HKUST laid the foundation for her adventurous spirit in research and her commitment to making a difference in the field of climate science.

Pioneering atmospheric rivers in East Asia

The study of Atmospheric Rivers (AR) was a new field, “a pure and untagged land” when Prof. Lu started her pursuit in the US in 2009. “There were more unknowns than known. As pioneers, the starting point was harder. I like the fact that it gives me more space to wander.” The field emerged after satellite images in the 1990s showed clearly chromes of rivers, thus supplementing and providing alternatives to traditional theories and offering convincing explanations to floods in the West.

“AR is extremely important for understanding and predicting climate change and extremes such as heavy rainfall, floods, tropical cyclones, heat waves, etc. Contrary to atmospheric rivers in the UK and US that peak in winter, in East Asia they peak in summer due to influence by monsoon.” To study AR in East Asia, Prof. Lu developed her own algorithm and database for East Asia, which she published in 2019. These papers were considered pioneering literatures to pave the way for AR studies in East Asia.

To improve predictions of heavy rainfall, she incorporates external information and signals such as wind and humidity in her model, which can be optimized for the Greater Bay Area. She concluded, “Southeast China is a hot spot for AR. In the past 40 years, AR is the cause of many floods in lower Yangtze River.”

With the belief that open source and contributions from different people are important for technological advancement, her team keeps the invention open for public access. “Just take it and run it,” she noted.

The team’s discoveries are increasingly recognized by governments and scholars. She is now leading meteoNEX, an AI-powered platform integrating HKUST_H/L model to deliver seamless weather-to-climate forecasting solutions and services. This project was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva in 2025.

Geneva Gold Medal
The meteoNEX project led by Prof. Lu was awarded a Gold Medal at the International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva in 2025.

MeteoNEX is recognized by UNESCO as part of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024-2033), SEPRESS (Seamless Prediction and Services for Sustainable Natural and Built Environments). The cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional project is supported by World Sustainable Development Institute (WSDI) and Otto Poon Center for Climate Resilience and Sustainability (CCRS), both of which she heads. It is one of the world’s 25 flagship initiatives being endorsed by SEPRESS, and the only one that involves collaboration between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland.

In Hong Kong, Prof. Lu is working with the Hong Kong Observatory regarding climate modeling.

Prof Lu at Muztagh Ata in Xinjiang, China
Prof. Lu (third left) and the SEPRESS team members at Muztagh Ata in Xinjiang, China.

“It is our long-term goal that HKUST becomes the global center for climate and sustainability research, on par with global centers such as European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the US National Weather Services’ National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP).”

As to entrepreneurship, she aspires to serve and empower industries with climate information to help them make business decisions and maximize profit. “For shipping companies, we help predict the climate and sea ice conditions so that they choose either the Arctic route or the tropical route to optimize time and cost for navigation. For renewable energy companies, our climate predictions facilitate their short-term operations and long-term strategic infrastructural planning regarding where to build sites, whether they should focus on maintenance or replacement, etc.”

Commitment to HKUST’s future

Having been both a student and a faculty member at HKUST, she is now a member of the Council and the Senate, roles that she felt proud to serve as they allow her to contribute to the future direction of the University. “I learned a lot from my involvement in these two important committees as I get to be in the same room with distinguished faculty and staff, who all pay great attention to the future development and current operation of the University. These experiences make my roots in HKUST even deeper and stronger,” Prof. Lu said.

Asked what she appreciates about HKUST, where she has been a faculty member since 2016, she highlighted the scenic campus, the University’s vision to be a world-class international institution, and its flat organizational structure that encourages open communication at all levels.

Prof. Lu Mengqian at the University’s Council Chamber
Prof. Lu Mengqian at the HKUST Council Chamber, the main meeting venue for the University's highest governing body.

Balancing work and life as working mom

As a super-busy working mom, she engages in quality time with her two young boys, and even creates her own bedtime story which she names One Bear and Two Skeletons.

She has the following advice for students. “Try to be a leader, not a follower.” As to females who aspire to become scientists and engineers, she said, “The society is already fair enough. There are both advantages and disadvantages to be a female scientist. So, first, think of yourself as a scientist. The society benefits from both genders that work together. I encourage female to be scientists.”

Prof. Lu loves the saying by Romain Rolland, French Nobel Prize for Literature: “The only true heroism is to recognize the truth of life and still love it”. She elaborated, “Embrace challenges, face difficulties, and take actions. Stop asking ‘what if’, and start living.”

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