30 IN FOCUS Honors & Appointments Prof. Joseph LEE, Senior Advisor to the President and Visiting Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been appointed Chairman of Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council by the Hong Kong government, e ective July , . The term is for three years. Faculty awards & achievements Chair Professor YANG Qiang, Computer Science and Engineering, has been elected general chair of the Association for the Advancement of Arti cial Intelligence (AAAI)’s th conference, AAAI- , which will be held in February in Vancouver. The gathering is a top international conference promoting arti cial intelligence research and exchange among researchers, practitioners, scientists, and engineers. Fang Professor of Engineering and Chair Professor Kei May LAU, Electronic and Computer Engineering, has received the Nick Holonyak Jr. Award from The Optical Society (OSA) for her contributions to semiconductor-based optical devices and materials. The OSA is the leading global professional society in optics and photonics, promoting and delivering scienti c and technical information worldwide. Chair Professor ZHANG Tong (le ), Mathematics and Computer Science & Engineering, and Prof. CHEN Lei (right), Computer Science & Engineering, have been elected Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), bringing the number of IEEE Fellows among School of Engineering faculty to . Prof. Zhang was recognized for his contributions to machine learning algorithms and Prof. Chen for his research into time series management and spatial crowdsourcing. External honors Three academics in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have been honored for their respective research in the Higher Education Outstanding Scienti c Research Output Awards (Science and Technology) from the Ministry of Education. Research led by Chair Professor Irene LO (le ) was accorded a Natural Science Award (Second Class) for studies on applying iron-based magnetic materials in heavy metal pollution control. Chair Professor ZHANG Limin (center) and his team received a Natural Science Award (First Class) for geotechnical research into rain-induced failure of colluvium soil slopes and risk mitigation measures. Prof. Christopher LEUNG (right) gained a Scienti c and Technological Progress Award (Second Class) for research on optimizing the design of high ductility cementitious composites and infrastructural performance improvements, carried out in collaboration with Southeast University, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, and industry partners. The accolades are among China’s top awards for science and technology.
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