MAPPING HKUST ENGINEERING | Spring 2015 | Newsletter No.26 THE FUTURE The Captivating World of 3D Computer Vision
Dean’s Message I am delighted that this issue of In Focus highlights the achievements and views of several of our female engineering faculty, showing the extensive opportunities that exist for women who enter the profession and engineering academia today. One of the key factors that I see in evolving more of a balance between the genders in engineering is for high-flying young women to have role models to alter the still all-too-common perception that engineering is a man’s world. We need to attract more female students to all the different fields that engineering comprises by letting them know the significance of engineers in tackling the grand challenges – ranging from sustainable development to renewable energy, healthcare delivery systems to electronic device breakthroughs. With more women involved, greater diversity in approach and perspective can be brought to the task of finding solutions to these multifaceted and vital issues. It is also important to recognize how deeply engineers can impact at community level through the practical nature of their work and the problem-solving mindset with which they address social change and advancement. I believe that working together with high schools is one valuable way to make sure female students are aware of the openings that await them in the technological arena. Indeed, by working with teachers and giving hands-on experience of projects to students, I feel we can make more young people – girls and boys – aware of the excitement in the engineering world and the impact they could have by pursuing engineering as a career. To students who have already made such a choice and graduated from the School of Engineering, I would like to say: “Keep connected!” HKUST is now heading into its 24th year and alumni at the School of Engineering, the University’s largest, total around 20,000. Our alumni span the world in a multitude of roles covering a huge spectrum of fields. They have worked for world-leading technology companies, such as Google and Microsoft. They have started up their own globally renowned businesses, such as DJI, a drone technology leader. They build and improve infrastructure, and are employed in industry and finance. They serve as faculty members and researchers in top universities around the globe. They are sought by the Hong Kong government. And take many other meaningful roles. We see our alumni as an essential part of our School of Engineering family and their experience and advice have a key role to play in nurturing future generations of HKUST engineers who will positively change the world. There are many ways in which our alumni can provide support. It may be to spread the word about the School and our achievements. Or to assist in a recruitment exercise in their part of the world. Or to serve as a mentor to current students, providing encouragement, input on courses and field work, and insights into the working world. In line with this, the School as a whole will be placing emphasis on keeping our alumni in touch through activities, news, campus gatherings and get-togethers in different parts of the world. Working as a School, not only individual departments and programs, we will be seeking to provide larger events that draw alumni together from across departments and years. We will be strengthening the feeling of a SENG community involving all those with connections to the School – past, present and potential students – and enhancing bonds between faculty members, students and the School. With our emphasis on gender diversity and the fortifying of our alumni as a community, 2015 is shaping up to be an invigorating and memorable year for the School of Engineering. I look forward to building the further connections that can take us forward in our quest. Prof Khaled Ben Letaief Dean of Engineering 1 In Focus
School of Engineering (SENG) faculty members and their innovative research drew global attention at the prestigious World Economic Forum annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, in January. Led by HKUST President Prof Tony Chan, four of the School’s academics hosted an IdeasLab, a unique Forum format in which the world’s leading minds present ideas to change lives for the better. HKUST was the only university from Asia to be part of the IdeasLab series at this year’s conference. The six other universities were Oxford, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon. At the HKUST IdeasLab, the SENG academics shared their insights on the integration of the physical and cyber worlds and the impact on society. Dean of Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief discussed the game-changing effect of 5G technology and Head of Computer Science and Engineering and New Bright Professor of Engineering Prof Qiang Yang looked at the new environment being ushered in by big data and artificial intelligence. Human-machine communications expert Prof Pascale Fung, Electronic and Computer Engineering, spoke on the development of empathetic robots and Prof Pedro Sander, Computer Science and Engineering, examined advances in capturing and rendering images to provide a more detailed visual record of the world. Prof Fung also co-hosted a lively dinner discussion on “Evolution of Human Knowledge in the 21st Century”, where politicians, business leaders, artists and writers debated how machines could be taught language and arts appreciation. Among the 2,500 global leaders attending the World Economic Forum were China’s Premier Li Keqiang and US Secretary of State John Kerry, Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. The School of Engineering received further recognition of its worldclass standing when HKUST was ranked first in Greater China and 21st globally in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings of Top 100 Universities for Engineering and Technology 2014-15. It marks the fourth year in a row that HKUST has garnered the No. 1 spot in engineering and technology in Greater China. The rankings are based on teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook. Dean of Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief said he was delighted with the result, which was a testament to the School’s strong belief in academic excellence and the global impact of its distinguished faculty and graduates. “We will continue to bring together the best researchers across disciplines,” he said, “to accelerate the transformation of discoveries into innovative technologies and solutions.” In the QS World University Rankings by Faculty 2014 – Engineering and Technology, released earlier, HKUST was ranked No. 15, its highest position yet in these tables. It jumped four places from No. 19 in 2013, and was placed No. 1 in Hong Kong for the fifth straight year. The University’s graduates also continued to show the strength of their appeal to employers. In the high-profile annual Global Employability University Survey and Ranking, HKUST rose to No. 16 in the world, up two places from the previous year. The University remained No. 1 in Greater China. The survey is conducted by Emerging, a French human resources consultancy, and Trendence, a leading German research institute. It covered 4,500 recruiters and executives from 20 countries and regions, including the US, Europe, and Asia, with over half from the leading 1,000 companies. * No. 1 in Greater China ^ No. 1 in Hong Kong SENG Faculty Look to the Future at World Economic Forum Rankings Add to HKUST’s Global Presence Times Higher Education World University Rankings of Top 100 Universities for Engineering and Technology 2014-15 No. 21* QS World University Rankings by Faculty 2014 – Engineering and Technology No. 15^ Global Employability University Survey and Ranking 2014 No. 16* In Focus 2
Mapping the Way Visualizing locations and finding the way to a new destination are set to become simpler, thanks to the discoveries of Prof Long Quan Navigating the world around us used to entail paper charts and maps, and the skill to interpret the system of signs and symbols that stood in for the real objects and features of the landscape. Not any more with the arrival of 3D mapping that visualizes the real-world route to your destination. Behind the opening salvos of simplifying travel for you and me lies an array of complex and lengthy research carried out over the past 30 years. It has taken this time and some of the world’s leading minds in computer vision to make such a development possible. Beyond, a host of significant uses now beckon. Among the global pioneers is Prof Long Quan, Computer Science and Engineering, who has devoted his entire academic career to the advancement of computer vision and 3D reconstruction from images through his own innovative contributions to these scientific areas and the mentoring of next-generation research stars. “This is the future,” said Prof Quan, Founding Director of the HKUST Center for Visual Computing and Image Science. “Your mobile phone will show you 3D images and it will be very convenient for moving around. Think of all the other uses for such maps too. Search and rescue teams would know the exact terrain they faced before they set out. The military could use 3D maps to guide missiles. “When I started, this was a relatively new field. But we already saw the potential for applications.” For Prof Quan, once a child artist who swapped paint brushes for computer vision, visual images are a fundamental element of life that speak to us directly. He has lived in this world of 3D reconstruction from the time of his graduate studies in France in the mid-1980s, which began with his Master’s at Université Henri Poincaré and was followed by a doctorate at the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine (INPL) (now both part of the University of Lorraine). The two institutions were leading establishments with laboratories affiliated with CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research) and INRIA (the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation). Prof Quan was a member of one of the earliest cohorts of Mainland students to receive a scholarship from the Ministry of Education to study overseas, following his graduation from Northern Jiaotong University (now Beijing Jiaotong University) in 1984. After earning his PhD in 1989, Prof Quan launched his academic career at INRIA Grenoble, France’s key public research institute focused on computational sciences, and contributed significantly to the development of modern 3D computer vision in the 1990s through his outstanding series of 3D reconstruction algorithms including the six-point algorithm and projective reconstruction from multiple views. He joined HKUST in 2001, where he remains fascinated by the potential of the area and expects to stay so in the decades ahead. 3 In Focus
Ahead in 3D Recent advances include reconstruction algorithms and systems, developed together with his research team, to address the challenge of missing detail that arises with present mapping technology. Current techniques use unmanned aerial vehicles and ground-level cars to collect image data, with areas that escape attention needing to be filled in manually. Through Prof Quan’s breakthrough, manual inputting can be replaced by automated reconstruction of buildings and landmarks, based on the images collected. This can take the technology to fresh heights of accuracy. Unsurprisingly, Prof Quan’s work has attracted attention from other academics and a wide range of companies, including Google, Nokia, Microsoft, Airbus, Thales, and Mainland China industries. He has over 6,700 citations and an H-index (a recognized measure of productivity and citation impact) of 43, according to Google Scholar. In addition, he has served as an editor and chair in all major computer vision journals and conferences respectively, and in 2011 was a General Chair of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, the premier biennial event in this field globally. “I have been very fortunate to be able to contribute to computer vision and serve this young and dynamic community,” he said. Prof Quan believes his on-going enthusiasm is driven by intellectual curiosity and a desire to see the knowledge he uncovers put to use. Along with applications, such uses encompass teaching and sharing his expertise and passion for discovery with students. He is a devoted educator and has twice been elected a HKUST Best Ten Lecturer in an independent student-organized poll. He is also a dedicated supervisor of graduate students, including Peter Sturm, the first awardee of the Best French PhD Dissertation of the Year in Computer Science (Le Prix de Thèse SPECIF 1998, now known as Le Prix de Thèse Gilles Kahn) and Maxime Lhuillier, who received the ICPR Piero Zamperoni Best Student Paper Award in 2000. His graduate students now hold faculty positions in world-renowned institutions and universities, such as CNRS, INRIA, Peking University, National University of Singapore, and Princeton University. Prof Quan is now driving advances through the further development of algorithms and systems for 3D mapping. Such work has attracted a constant stream of six-figure funding under various Hong Kong Research Grants Council schemes and from industry grants. Several patents have been awarded and others are pending. In addition, a related HKUST start-up has been launched. The search is continuous for ways to advance through greater accuracy, higher resolution, and faster speed, he noted. One key project is to map the whole of Hong Kong in 3D. “This is our dream,” Prof Quan said. “We have started to undertake the work. However, data capture is expensive. I am now applying for funding through different channels to enable us to reach our goal.” Such a survey would assist various industries, including logistics and navigation companies. Urban planners could also benefit. “Computer vision is different from other computer science areas as you see concrete objects, not only abstract numbers,” Prof Quan said. “To me, the fascination of the 3D shape is endless. Its construction, which involves both visual artistic form and geometry, is of constant interest. We still have a great deal to explore in terms of applications but we are moving forward.” · BS in Telecommunication, Northern Jiaotong University, Beijing, 1984 · MS (D.E.A.) in Computer Science, Université Henri PoincaréCNRS-INRIA, France, 1986 · PhD in Computer Science, INPL-CNRS-INRIA, France, 1989 · CNRS Researcher at INRIA, France, 1990-2001 · Associate Professor, Computer Science, HKUST, 2001-05 · Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, HKUST, 2005-now A Visionary Career Prof Long Quan’s pathway to pioneering insights: In Focus 4
School of Engineering undergraduates have increasing opportunities to take part in enriching learning experiences apart from their studies, including internships at major companies and organizations and research exchanges with top global universities. Here, students and alumni discuss their beyond-theclassroom experiences United Nations intern Samantha Wing Man Kong BEng, Chemical and Environmental Engineering (2014) UN Headquarters, New York, Summer 2014 Young Engineers Ms & Mr How did you feel about your time at the United Nations (UN)? I spent most of my three-month internship at the UN Headquarters in New York City. It proved one of the most remarkable experiences I have had in my life and has deepened my passion for international relations. Was it difficult to gain the internship? I was chosen as one of 10 representatives from all over the world, following two rounds of interviews. Here, I must also add a big thank you to HKUST Sustainability Unit, which oversees the University’s commitment to environmental stewardship and sponsored my internship. What did you do there? I worked as a Youth Representative for an NGO, which focuses on promoting environmental health and literacy. I was mainly responsible for attending and summarizing daily briefings held in the UN, covering areas such as sustainable development, technology, energy, peace and security. I participated in certain high-level meetings, for example, the drafting of Sustainable Development Goals with Member States, as well as seminars and briefings held by UN bodies and agencies, including the General Assembly and Security Council. Who did you meet? In addition to duties at the UN, we were given the chance to interact with diplomats on global issues. This offered first-hand interaction with decisionmakers on developmental issues and practitioners of diplomacy. I also met Dr Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, who previously served as Director of Health in the Hong Kong government. We briefly discussed the Ebola issue. What did you gain from your time there? I slowly built a clear understanding on various world issues and their relationship to my own interests. Meetings on the environment and sustainability were valuable resources to enrich my knowledge, which in turn inspired me to seek my current post as a Graduate Environmental Engineer at an international consultancy. In September, I will pursue a Master’s in Architecture, specializing in environmental design. 5 In Focus
Why did you want to go on a company internship? I felt it was necessary to get hands-on experience in a particular industry before entering it. I thought it would help me to know whether I liked the field and whether my background was the right fit or not. More importantly, internship seemed to be an important stepping stone for joining larger companies. How did you choose/were chosen to join this company? I wanted to apply to Goldman Sachs because it is a major company and a fresh industry for an engineering student like me. The company chose me because of my engineering background, which could add more diversity to a finance firm. What was your first day like? The first day was orientation. We had to meet all the other interns and listen to company executives talk about the corporate culture, rules, and so forth. This helped to integrate the interns into the company. What did you feel was the main benefit of the internship? Getting to know an industry other than engineering. I found out how people deal with pop-up issues – problem-solving in an international company – as well as some of the dos and don’ts in a large firm. I was also able to meet great peers and mentors. How do you think it will help you in your future career? I believe it will really add value to my personal development and networking. I learned a large amount about the finance industry, which I felt would make it easier to enter such a field when I graduated. What did you learn about yourself as a result of the internship? I realized that my problem-solving skills built up during my undergraduate studies were not bad! And I could probably go further in this area. Why did you apply to join the pilot HKUST-Harvard program? I believed it was a great opportunity for me to learn about cutting-edge technology and make new friends. I feel fortunate to have been selected with so many smart students in the School. I am not great at getting good grades but I love working on group projects. I like research because I get to explore some of the latest technologies. This program, which let me work in a multicultural team, really appealed to me. How many people could join the program and how long did it last? A total of eight students, four from each university, spent one month at HKUST and one month at Harvard. What did the research involve? The project centered on visible light communication and there were two project themes, one on door locking and one on mining. I worked on the latter. In Hong Kong, we mainly learned about the design process and did some brainstorming. At Harvard, we worked on a prototype, undertaking testing and debugging. Did the project go smoothly? Not always! We quite often got stuck on technical problems. When this happened, we would have a cup of coffee, discuss, and start over. I really enjoyed this learning process and the teamwork involved. Did you have time for social activities? In Hong Kong, we took our US teammates to see the sights. In Boston, at the weekends, we explored the city. We even took a four-hour bus ride to New York, where we visited the Brooklyn Bridge, China Town, Statue of Liberty, and other places. What did you gain from the program? I learned a great deal from the Harvard students, in particular, their passion. Over those two months, I realized how enthusiastic they were and not afraid to try new things. Although most of the US students came from mechanical engineering, the project was more focused on electronic engineering. I saw how they devoted a lot of time to research, learning about circuits, and testing. They failed many times, but didn’t give up and, in the end, we accomplished two amazing projects. What will you remember most? Achieving great things is not about how smart you are. It is about not giving up. Corporate intern Helen Yifang Liu Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (2015) Goldman Sachs Investment Bank, Hong Kong, Summer 2014 HKUST-Harvard Undergraduate Summer Exchange Research Program Micky Chi Yee Chan Computer Engineering Program (2015) HKUST and Harvard, Summer 2014 In Focus 6
I attended Pui Ching Middle School here in Hong Kong and then went to college in the United States where I majored in physics for my Bachelor and Master’s at the University of Minnesota. For my PhD, I switched to Rice University in Houston and electrical engineering. I chose to move into engineering because I enjoy experimental research and making things work. I also felt that engineering had broader career prospects and my earlier studies in physics actually prepared me to be a better engineer. Making the connection between quantum mechanics and semiconductor physics can lead to the invention of novel electronic devices that become new products for our daily lives. Material and semiconductor physics are applied to produce integrated circuits, which are the heart and brain of mobile phones, computers, and most other electronic gadgets today. I find all my engineering research satisfying in terms of the challenges it presents. As the saying goes, one can always build a better mousetrap. Take my work on light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In the early days, most people believed LEDs could only be used for displays and indicators and were not good enough or cost-effective for illumination. I was one of those who took up this quest. Now, after years of research and refinement, LEDs will definitely be our dominant lighting source for many years to come. But perhaps the most satisfying aspect of my career so far has been to nurture successful engineering students. Sometimes students ask why we teach what we teach, with all the “useless” theories and complicated math involved. I try to explain our approach with the proverb: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. What we are actually providing are the basic tools and training to think from an analytical point of view so students can solve engineering problems throughout their career. With technology changing so fast, we cannot just teach facts of current technology because, in a few years, things will no longer be the same. But if you know the fundamentals, you will know how to design new products that fit into the future technology. You can look for better ways of doing things and make innovative contributions. This is what ENGINEERING is all about! I also believe that women and men are equally competent and equally adept at problem solving, and both can become good engineers. Therefore, female students should not be discouraged from entering the engineering field. Indeed, in some senses, girls are more creative, and creativity is essential in engineering design. Engine We I was born in Shanghai to professional artist parents. They expected me to follow in their footsteps. However, I was also curious in many other subjects. When I was seven, I read a science fiction book that described a future world, where robots talk to you and you could shop at home via computers. I was fascinated and wanted to see such a world develop as quickly as possible. After we moved to Hong Kong, I watched sci-fi movies on television and was captivated by the universal translator in Star Trek, where anyone can speak any language into it and it will be translated into any other language. I also read in Ming Pao newspaper about Bell Labs in the US, where scientists had invented cool technologies such as the transistor Prof Kei May Lau Chair Professor, Electronic and Computer Engineering · Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers · HKUST Women in Science and Engineering Scholarship Group Chairman · Research interests: high frequency, high speed and photonic devices; lightemitting diodes and lasers Prof Pascale Fung Professor, Electronic and Computer Engineering · Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers · Chairperson and Co-founder, iVo Technologies · Research interests: building machines that can communicate and empathize with humans 7 In Focus
eringThree women faculty members explain what they find most rewarding about their careers As an undergraduate, I studied agricultural and biological engineering at Cornell University, with the coursework spanning life science and engineering subjects. After graduation, I went to work at the worldfamous Merck Research Laboratories as a biochemical engineer. During my time there, I learned how to apply engineering skills to drug delivery and vaccine manufacturing, and I saw the demand for bioengineering research in the pharmaceutical industry. I then decided to take my Master’s (University of Pennsylvania) and PhD (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). I had been encouraged to become an engineer by my father, who was a practicing electronic engineer. He emphasized the importance of quantitative thinking and problemsolving skills and he felt that engineering provided such training. He was also visionary because he could see the promise of engineering applications in life science and biotechnology in the future and suggested I pursued my major in this area. I joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the School of Engineering in 2006. As I am from Hong Kong, I decided to return to the city when offered the opportunity. Currently, my two main areas of research are drug delivery for the treatment of eye diseases and the research of nano materials for building the next generation of therapeutic carriers. I really find my research intellectually interesting. At the same time, such work can benefit people’s lives. Both motivate me to keep finding out more. In teaching, I have initiated a project called Student Innovation for Global Health Technology (SIGHT). SIGHT provides a platform for students from different disciplines (not only engineering) to take part in projects with social impact. Based on the framework of design thinking, students brainstorm, prototype, and implement practical solutions for low-resource settings. Our first projects were carried out in Cambodia. I found this trip very meaningful as students had the chance to put their ideas into practice and clearly found it a transformational experience. I like to think that I and women faculty in general serve as role models for women students. If female students are interested in engineering, they should go ahead to join the field. I enjoy the freedom of doing what I enjoy (SIGHT, conducting research), and also my interaction with different people, such as my research team, students, and scientists from all over the world. However, the most rewarding aspect to me is mentoring – transferring knowledge and values to students, and witnessing their growth during the most transformative years of their lives. Prof Ying Chau Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering · PhD in Chemical Engineering, MIT · Biochemical Engineer, Merck Research Labs, US · Research interests: biomedical engineering; drug delivery; cancer targeting; tissue engineering and the Unix operating system. I thought I would like to go there. So I went to university in the US and chose to major in electrical engineering. In college I realized that I preferred software to hardware. For my final year project, I worked on computer vision, an area in artificial intelligence. I also finished an undergraduate humanities thesis on French movies. All of which led me to study in an engineering school in Paris later on. There I had my first encounter with speech recognition in a lab. I worked on speech recognition systems for the French language, and on Japanese when I lived in Japan. I learned to speak French, Japanese and also taught machines to recognize these languages. Afterward, I moved back to the US and worked for a US-DARPA contractor company (the same company that built the first part of ARPANET, the beginning of our Internet today). We built the world’s first real-time continuous English speech recognition system. When I was doing my PhD, my thesis advisor told me about machine translation. There was a group at Bell Labs and a group at IBM research labs pioneering a way to build machine translation by enabling the system to learn from a huge amount of human translation samples. I did part of my thesis work at Bell Labs. So, yes, I finally got to build the gadget I saw in Star Trek when I was little. Computers that can talk to you and allow you to shop from home are part of real life now. However, we still have a long way to go before we have machines that can understand your intent, your emotion and the context perfectly. Every year we make progress in research and bring the future a little closer. When I went to the US to study my ambition was to work at Bell Labs. However, in 1994, I visited HKUST and was fascinated by the vision of a “startup” university that was going to break the mold. So, when I got my PhD, I decided that it would be more fun to join HKUST than stay at Bell Labs. At HKUST in 1998, we built the world’s first multilingual voice browser in eight languages. To be continued on P.14 In Focus 8
A School of Engineering professor and his team secured two awards at the inaugural Wharton-QS Stars Awards 2014: Reimagine Education, an event that drew more than 425 universities and enterprises from over 40 countries. The contest was organized by The Wharton SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, University of Pennsylvania, and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), publisher of the QS World University Rankings, in December to recognize and share higher education innovations worldwide, enhance learning and nurture employability. A team led by Prof Ting Chuen Pong, Senior Advisor to the Executive Vice-President and Provost (Teaching Innovation and e-Learning) and Computer Science and Engineering, came second in the hybrid learning category for their Hong Kong Virtual University Program (HKVU), which was established with initial funding from University Grants Committee’s Restructuring and Collaboration Fund. The initiative creates a virtual campus for students around the world to study courses offered by universities in Hong Kong. HKVU enables students to take classes unavailable in their home institution and builds a bridge for students transitioning from secondary school to tertiary education. It also offers lifelong learning opportunities and useful feedback for educators. Courses are delivered through blended learning, which integrates face-to-face teaching with online media and gives students flexibility to learn according to their own timetable. The hybrid learning category winner was the University of Utah, with HKUST sharing the runner-up position with Delft University of Technology and finishing ahead of Harvard University, which came in third. In addition, HKUST won the natural sciences subject award for its Chemists Online program under HKVU. The enterprising program gives secondary school students exposure to universitylevel education through seminars and lab sessions. Over 8,000 students from 140 secondary schools in Hong Kong and Macau have benefited from the project. “I was delighted that we were able to gain such recognition in the face of strong competition from around the world,” said Prof Pong, who became Director of the School of Engineering’s pioneering Center for Engineering Education Innovation in January. “These awards show that HKUST is not only committed to innovative education but among the global leaders in its approach and development of such teaching and learning.” The overall contest winners were National Taiwan University and University of Colorado Boulder. Entries were judged by 25 international experts in education and business. Further details of Hong Kong Virtual University Program at http://hkvu.ust.hk HKUST Brings Home Two Awards From First ‘Oscars’ of Higher Education Innovation Prof Ting Chuen Pong, Computer Science and Engineering, has taken up the post of Director of the Center for Engineering Education Innovation (E²I), following the retirement of Prof Neil Mickleborough, Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Prof Mickleborough provided outstanding leadership during his tenure, taking over after the untimely passing of Founding Director Prof Edmond Ko in 2012 and building on Prof Ko’s legacy to establish the Center as an influential global leader in engineering education and an important contributor to student advising at the School,” Dean of Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief said. Prof Pong said he was looking forward to the challenge of advancing E²I further. Leading the Way at E²I 9 In Focus
An innovative aluminum composite has been discovered by a HKUST research team led by Prof Yui Bun Chan, Civil and Environmental Engineering, with support from leading global aluminum producer UC RUSAL. The material, known as fiber reinforced aluminum, is stronger than current aluminum, and less expensive and lighter than steel. Fiber reinforced aluminum has a wide range of potential applications, especially in the construction industry where it can serve as an alternative to steel and cement. It can also be applied to electronic products, automobiles, and aircraft. Fiber reinforced aluminum is a mixture of carbon fiber and aluminum and the search for a way to merge the two materials has taxed top minds for a long time. Prof Chan’s team secured the key breakthrough by using nanotechnology to alter the composition of carbon fiber, enabling it to integrate with other substances, such as aluminum. The research is now undergoing its final phase and is expected to be completed in 2015. Prof Chan pointed out that, in current construction projects, aluminum is largely restricted to use in window frames due to its soft texture. However, the new carbon-fiber aluminum could be used to produce a greener, cheaper and lighter building envelope. “If used together with a phase-change material (PCM), fiber reinforced aluminum creates a smart building envelope system, which will effectively reduce indoor temperature fluctuation and halve labor costs and construction time compared to conventional systems built mainly from steel and cement,” Prof Chan said. The research is part of a five-year cooperation program between HKUST and UC RUSAL that seeks to foster joint scientific research to address environmental issues and links between young scientists in Russia and Hong Kong. Two additional Minor Programs were launched during 2014, enhancing the scope of School of Engineering study options for undergraduates. The School is now jointly offering a Minor in Entrepreneurship with HKUST Business School for undergraduates, with two-thirds of students from business and the other third from engineering. Prof Po Chi Wu, Founding Director of the Entrepreneurship Minor Program, said he was delighted with the strong level of interest and quality of students who had applied. In addition, a new Minor in Design was also launched by the Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management. Among its required courses is the enterprising four-week Design Thinking course held together with China Academy of Art over the summer, during which students work together in teams to create an original product from scratch. Minors already available from the School of Engineering include aeronautical engineering, bioengineering, engineering management and law, and environmental sustainability and management. Students can also take minors offered by other HKUST Schools. Aluminum Composite Discovery Opens Up Potential for Greener Construction Entrepreneurship and Design Minors Add to Study Options In Focus 10
Dean of Engineering and Chair Professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief and Prof Jun Zhang, Electronic and Computer Engineering, and their team won the Best Paper Award in the 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC). The paper focused on “Joint Data Assignment and Beamforming for Backhaul Limited Caching Networks” and was coauthored by PhD student Xi Peng and research associate Dr Juei Chin Shen. Prof Zhang also received the 2014 EURASIP Best Paper Award for his co-authored paper on “Mode Switching for the Multi-Antenna Broadcast Channel Based on Delay and Channel Quantization”. Prof Ricky Shi Wei Lee, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, together with his research team, won an Outstanding Paper Award for “Development of an Integrated Real-Time Scanning System with Uni-Photodetector for LED Reliability Tests” at the 15th International Conference on Electronic Packaging Technology in Chengdu. His co-authors were Dr Jeffery Lo of HKUST and Grace Zhang of HKUST LEDFPD Technology R&D Center at Foshan. Prof Ho Yin Mak, Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management, was awarded the 2014 INFORMS Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment (ENRE) Young Researcher Prize. Prof Minhua Shao, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received the Energy Technology Division Supramaniam Srinivasan Young Investigator Award from the Electrochemical Society. He received the accolade “for his accomplishments in the synthesis and characterization of novel electrocatalysts and materials for electrochemical energy technologies” in the United States. He joined HKUST in 2014. Prof J S Kuang, Civil and Environmental Engineering, was honored with the Telford Premium 2014 from the Institution of Civil Engineers UK for the best paper on engineering and computational mechanics. In addition, he won the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Advances in Civil and Structural Engineering. Prof Kuang has been elected a council member of the Institution of Structural Engineers, one of the most prestigious civil engineering professional bodies in the world. Prof Furong Gao, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received a National Natural Science Foundation of China key project award for his study on “High Performance Control of Batch Process”. Prof Vladimir Chigrinov, Electronic and Computer Engineering, won the Gold Medal and Best Award in the Invention & Innovation Awards 2014 at the Malaysia Technology Expo 2014. His co-authored paper explored “Environmental Friendly, Non-Hazardous, Biocomposite Mixtures for Future Generation Plastic Displays”. The paper also won the Green Technology Award from the Japan Intellectual Property Association at the Expo. Prof Lei Chen, Computer Science and Engineering, has been elected to the Very Large Data Base Endowment Inc (VLDB Endowment) Board of Trustees. The 21 trustees are elected among internationally distinguished researchers and professionals in the field. Prof Mansun Chan, Electronic and Computer Engineering, and his team in Shenzhen received a Second Class Award in the Natural Science Category of the 2013 Shenzhen Science and Technology Awards for their “Study of Double Gate FinFET Device Physics, Modeling and Circuit Applications”. Faculty Honors, Awards & Achievements Prof Richard So, Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management, has been elected a Fellow of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), the first member from Hong Kong to achieve the honor. IEA Fellowship has been accorded to less than 100 recipients since 1960. Prof So has also been elected co-editor-inchief for Displays, an international journal. He is the first Chinese person to hold the prestigious title. 11 In Focus
Prof Ricky Shi Wei Lee, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Director of the Center for Advanced Microsystems Packaging, delivered the 2014 Calvin W Rice Lecture in November 2014, becoming the first Hong Kong academic to be accorded the honor. Prof Lee received the accolade from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in recognition of his contribution to the mechanical engineering community across the world. Prof Lee is a global expert on electronic and light-emitting diode (LED) packaging. He gave the lecture at the annual ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition Conference (IMECE) in Montreal, Canada. The theme of his talk was “A New Silk Road: Evolution and Migration of Electronic and Photonic Packaging Technologies from the West to the East”. “I was very happy to have this opportunity to speak to such a prestigious group of engineers and proud to be able to highlight the leading work being carried out at the School and HKUST,” Prof Lee said. “The occasion was particularly special because I am the first one from Hong Kong to receive this ASME society level award and I felt so honored to have the privilege to represent HKUST at such an occasion.” Prof Lee launched his academic career after earning a PhD in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University in 1992. He joined HKUST in 1993. His research in recent years has involved leading a team to investigate how to achieve high throughput and low-cost manufacturing using advanced LED wafer-level packaging technologies. As Director of the HKUST LED-FPD Technology R&D Center at Foshan, he also hopes to foster HKUST-developed LED packaging and manufacturing technologies for the solid-state lighting industry in Foshan and neighboring areas for development and commercialization to enhance the region’s competitiveness. The Calvin W Rice Lecture Award was established in 1934. Prof Lee was only the second Greater China recipient of the award, following Prof Wei Yang, former President of Zhejiang University. The School of Engineering academic gained further recognition when he received the 2014 IEEE CPMT David Feldman Outstanding Contribution Award for his sustained leadership and service to the Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology (CPMT) Society in a range of areas. Prof Lee served as 2012-13 IEEE CPMT Society President. Prof Ching W Tang, IAS Bank of East Asia Professor and Chair Professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Chemistry and Physics, received the 2014 Nick Holonyak Jr Award from the Optical Society (OSA), a USbased global organization recognized as the leading professional association in optics and photonics. The award is presented to an individual who has made significant contributions to optics based on semiconductor-based optical devices and materials, including basic science and technological applications. Following Prof Tang’s breakthrough research in the 1980s, he became known as the father of organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), now a significant industry with applications related to television screens and mobile phone displays, among others. In 2011, he became the first Chinese Wolf Prize Laureate in Chemistry. LED Packaging Expert Shines at Calvin W Rice Lecture Optical Society Honors ‘Father of OLED’ In Focus 12
Prof Irene Lo has become the first Hong Kong member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, elected for the impact of her research and practical advances in solving environmental challenges. She talks to In Focus about her work in decontamination and outlook on engineering When Prof Irene Lo heard the news that she had been elected an Academician in the Technical and Environmental Sciences branch of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, her initial reaction was: “Not me?!” The Civil and Environmental Engineering professor was equally surprised and delighted to find she had become the first Hong Kong scholar to receive the honor from the august body, which comprises over 1,500 top scientists, researchers, philosophers and artists from Europe, Asia and the US, and includes 29 Nobel Laureates. However, Prof Lo has certainly earned her place among the Academy’s members after more than two decades of high achievement and technological innovation at the School of Engineering. Her focus over this time has been clean-up solutions to the major environmental problem of contaminated soil, sediment and water, and her influence has been global in both academic and professional engineering worlds. “I see a problem in reality. Then I look for the root cause and how to solve it,” Prof Lo explained. “I start with work in the laboratory and gradually move to a full site test of the technology. Publications are important but not my ultimate goal. For every piece of research I do, I must think of the application. The most exciting part is when you see the technology actually working. There is a real sense of discovery.” Prof Lo was one of the early exponents of environmental engineering as it expanded from sanitary engineering (mainly issues related to water and wastewater) into a wide-ranging university discipline in the 1980s. She was attracted by the scope of the subject, which involved integration of physics, chemistry and biology – all subjects she was good at and enjoyed from her time at Shau Kei Wan Government Secondary School in Hong Kong onward. Environmental engineering’s potential to improve the quality of people’s lives was another significant draw. Joining HKUST in 1992 as a junior faculty member, Prof Lo has gone on to bring fresh dimensions to research and applications for water, soil, and solid waste pollution control. During sabbatical leave in 1999 at the Technical University of Denmark, she had the opportunity to collaborate with Prof Peter Kjeldsen, another leading figure in groundwater and soil remediation, and seek ways to bring their scientific findings related to permeable reactive barrier technology to fruition in the outside world. “It worked in the lab but we needed to show people it worked in the field to have real impact,” she said. MS and PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 1990 and 1992 Fellow of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE), 2009 Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2009 Research interests: include remediation technology for contaminated soils and sludge; solidification/stabilization of contaminated marine mud/sediment/ soils for beneficial reuse; bioremediation of sediment for odor suppression and organic biodegradation; chemical reduction of chlorinated hydrocarbons and reducible inorganic compounds by permeable reactive barriers; nanomaterials for water and industrial wastewater treatment; life cycle environmental assessment of materials Professional awards: include ASCE James Croes Medal, 2004 (first Chinese principal investigator to win since 1912); ASCE Samuel Arnold Greeley Award, 2007; ASCE Wesley W Horner Award, 2009; ASCE EWRI Best Practice-Oriented Paper Award, 2012; Research Excellence Award, School of Engineering, HKUST, 2013 Teaching awards: include Michael G Gale Medal for Distinguished Teaching, HKUST, 2006; Distinguished Teaching Award, School of Engineering, HKUST, 2007 Firmly Grounded Achievement Freeing the Earth 13 In Focus
Continued from P.8 I also had the opportunity to start the Human Language Technology Center with other faculty members. Our center was the first in Greater China to research speech recognition, machine translation and information retrieval. In addition, the center founded a number of startup companies that launched the world’s first Chinese natural language search engine, and the world’s first online translation engine, among others. I love my job and feel very lucky that I am being paid to realize my childhood dreams. Only engineers can get so many resources to build “toys” on a big scale. My overall goals are to improve people’s lives with our technology. To make such an impact, research is not enough. It is also necessary to develop products and market them. In 2011, I helped to found the Women Faculty Association at HKUST to enhance and improve diversity in terms of gender and cultural backgrounds. Other universities in Hong Kong are beginning to do the same this year. There are plenty of women who, given the opportunity, would be interested in engineering. Engineering is a good career for financial independence – a good engineer can always find a job anywhere in the world. Engineering also allows you to innovate, create, and make a direct positive impact on the societies of today and tomorrow. This they managed to do when they partnered with the Danish Environmental Protection Agency in tackling groundwater that had become polluted by chlorinated hydrocarbons at the Vapokon site on Fuen Island in Denmark. In Hong Kong, Prof Lo received Research Grants Council funding to assist the project mainly on the support of a PhD student to work in Denmark and conduct preliminary test and site monitoring work. The resulting full-scale fieldwork brought an immense amount of useful data for understanding the mechanism involved in permeable reactive barrier technology, publications in leading journals, and two major awards from the American Society of Civil Engineers. “The breakthrough was learning how to set up a monitoring system to find out whether the pollutants in groundwater had been removed or not. The data showed they really were reduced. They were being treated and removed on site,” Prof Lo explained. In 2006, the research was extended to groundwater contaminated by chromium, arsenic and other toxic anionic pollutants. Closer to home, Prof Lo has carried out projects to clean up the Shing Mun River in Sha Tin and the Sham Chun River at the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The first involved a bioremediation technology and was carried out together with the Hong Kong government’s Civil Engineering and Development Department. The second trialed a soil/sediment washing technology for a joint study conducted by the Hong Kong and Shenzhen governments. “Every site is unique, depending on the pollutant and the nature of the soil, so you have to use different technologies to deal with it,” she noted. Currently, she is working with a private company over an environmentally friendly technology to clean up marine mud and reuse it on site. Such cutting-edge fieldwork has a useful impact on her teaching, another area to which she devotes much thought and effort and has brought University commendations. “When I apply my research on site, I use such information in my teaching,” Prof Lo said. “My students benefit a lot as they really see how it can be used. It is not just a concept anymore.” Prof Lo is keen to see more women become civil and environmental engineers and thinks high school students with an affinity for the three major sciences and a rational mindset will find the areas rewarding. “The word ‘civil’ in civil engineering stands for ‘civilization’”, she pointed out. A greater female presence could also bring new perspectives and vision. Other changes she is looking forward to include the valuable networking opportunities she foresees following her election to the Academy, an institution which focuses on developing knowledge, disseminating scientific information, and implementing major multinational projects. She is already noticing a stream of offers to speak at conferences and believes that the international connections that Academy membership can bring will create wider exposure for the School and HKUST. On her attainment of this standing, she remains modest, seeing the accolade not as personal achievement but simply as heartening evidence of the contribution she has been able to make to society. “My research students congratulated me and said it was a great honor,” she said. “To me, it is international recognition of my work over the past 20 years.” In Focus 14
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