Strategic Topics Grant

Strategic Topics Grant Assessment Committee

Member Title/Sphere of Interest
Chairman
Professor Tai-fai Fok Professor Emeritus, Department of Paediatrics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Interests in environmental applications and implications of nanotechnology, bioremediation of toxic chemicals, water footprint of biofuels, water treatment and reuse, and antibiotic resistance control.

Deputy Chairman
Professor Paul Clark* Chair Professor of Chinese, School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Interests in Contemporary Chinese popular culture, including film, the Cultural Revolution, Contemporary Chinese history.

Sub-group Chairmen
Professor Wan-ki Chow Emeritus Professor of Architectural Science and Fire Engineering, Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, H.K.

Interests in Architectural Science; Fire Science and Engineering; Green and Sustainable Buildings; Life Science and Engineering.

Prof Karl Herrup* Professor of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, U.S.A.

Interests in Neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer’s disease, DNA damage neuroinflammation, myelin.

Professor Franklin Tai-cheung Luk Professor Emeritus, Department of Mathematics, Hong Kong Baptist University, H.K.

Interests in computer science; electrical engineering, mathematics.

Members
Professor Larry Catá Backer* W. Richard and Mary Eshelman Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law and International Affairs, The Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A.

Interests in globalization, governance institutions, corporate social responsibility, semiotics.

Professor Catherine Brinson* Professor and Chair, Department of Mechanical, Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University, U.S.A.

Interests in advanced material systems and developing new methods to characterize and to model material behavior.

Dr. Daniel Chan* Principal/Founder, A2DK

Interests in Deep Learning in Vision and Natural Language Processing, Cloud Computing, Large Scale Data Engineering, Massively Parallel Computers, Lean Startup and Leadership.

Professor Suzanne Sut-ying Chan Ho Emeritus Professor, The Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, H.K.

Interests in Women’s health/midlife women, Breast cancer/epidemiology and survival, Nutritional epidemiology, Aging/epidemiology of aging, morbidity outcomes, and longitudinal study.

Professor Jeffrey Tai-kin Cheung* Adjunct Professor, Department of Physics, Hong Kong Baptist University, H.K.
Former Scientist, Rockwell Science Center

Interests in Chemical Sciences, Materials Science, molecular dynamics and kinetics, Thin film material synthesis, characterization and application, Bio mechanics: gait and posture, Fall risk assessment and balance.

Professor Larry R. Dalton* Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, U.S.A.

Interests in Electro-optic materials and devices, organic photonics and electronics, condensed matter theory and performance modeling, information technology, femtosecond spectroscopy and characterization techniques, silicon photonics, plasmonics, metamaterials.

Professor Ronald Fischer* Professor, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Interests in Cultural Psychology, Social Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Behavioral Neuroscience.

Professor Theo Fotis* Associate Professor, School of Health Sciences, University of Brighton, U.K.

Interests in Digital Health, Health Innovation, Heath Technologies, Acute Care, Perioperative care and having extensive experience on reviewing both qualitative and quantitative projects.

Professor Robin Gauld* Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Dean, Otago Business School, Commerce Division, University of Otago, New Zealand

Interests in Public health policy; health services and management; health systems; population health; public policy and administration; health information technology; e-government; qualitative and quantitative methods.

Professor Maria Gini* Professor, CSE Distinguished Professor, Distinguished University Teaching Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Minnesota, U.S.A.

Interests in artificial intelligence and robotics, in particular, robot planning, navigation in unknown environments, coordinated behaviors of autonomous robots, search and rescue applications, and economic agents.

Professor Nan Greenwood* Emerita Professor, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, Kingston University, U.K.

Interests in older people, carers, dementia and stroke, ethnic and cultural diversity.

Professor Dean Ho* Provost’s Chair Professor and Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Interests in Artificial Intelligence, Digital Medicine, Nanomedicine, N-of-1 Clinical Trials, Combination Therapy, Clinical validation of personalised medicine, Digital Therapeutics, Harnessing AI-based optimisation platforms for pandemic and AMR preparedness, Integrating behavioural and implementation sciences with technology development, Harnessing digital health-based platforms to address food security, Clinical trial design innovation and Development of nanodiamond platforms for drug delivery and imaging applications.

Professor Ilan Katz* Professor, Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC), University of New South Wales, Australia

Interests in Parenting, child protection, youth justice, prevention and family support, children, families and communities, comparative child welfare systems, migration, race and ethnicity and evaluation of complex interventions.

Professor Arthur Yu-shin Kim* Associate Professor, Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University, U.S.A.

Interests in AIDS and HIV infection, Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Hepatitis C virus (HCV), HIV / HCV coinfection, Immunocompromised patient, Immunology, Substance abuse and Travel medicine.

Professor Chao-jun Li* Professor of Chemistry (E. B. Eddy Chair), Canada Research Chair in Green/Organic Chemistry, McGill University, Canada

Interests in green chemistry; organic chemistry; synthesis of biologically active compounds; catalysis.

Professor Ching-long Lin* Professor and Departmental Executive Officer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Iowa, U.S.A.

Interests in multiscale simulation of gas flow and particle transport in the human lungs, turbulent flow in complex geometry, fluid-structure interaction, parallel computing.

Professor Sylvie Lorente* College of Engineering Chair Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Villanova University, U.S.A.

Interests in heat and mass transfer, fluid flows, buildings construction.

Professor Toby Miller* Visiting Professor, Faculty of Information Sciences, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain

Interests in Cultural Studies, media studies, sport, labor, gender, textual analysis, archival research, ethnography race, citizenship and politics, cultural policy and political economy.

Professor Alexandru Morega* Professor of Electrical Engineering, Department of Electrical Machines, Materials and Actuators, University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania

Interests in electromagnetism, electrical and magnetic circuits, processes of heat and mass transfer, energy conversion and sources, mathematical, numerical modeling for boundary and initial condition problems; nonlinear dynamics, biomedical engineering and technology, structural optimization, construction design, modeling interdisciplinary problems.

Professor Danny Chiang-choon Poo* Associate Professor, Department of Information Systems and Analytics, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Interests in software engineering; systems development; requirement engineering; software maintenance; object-oriented technology; domain analysis; expert systems; information system management; information science, knowledge management, taxonomy; healthcare; artificial intelligence; machine learning; data analytics.

Professor Peng Sun* Professor, The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, U.S.A.

Interests in Stochastic Dynamic Programming, Dynamic Mechanism Design, Dynamic Contract Design, with Applications in Operations Management, Health Care, Sustainability, Finance and Marketing.

Professor John Siu-lun Tam Honorary Professor, Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, H.K.

Interests in Virology (human and animal virology), Infectious diseases epidemiology, Vaccine R&D and vaccinology, Vaccine policy development and implementation.

Professor Lakshman Tamil* Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, U.S.A.

Interests in optical networks, wireless sensor networks, optical switching, optical routing, remote health care, smart homes, body area network, biomedical devices, biomedical systems.

Professor Fahui Wang* Cyril & Tutta Vetter Alumni Professor, Louisiana State University, U.S.A.

Interests in Spatially-integrated social sciences, public policy and planning (S3P3).

Professor Yinsheng Wang* Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Riverside, U.S.A.

Interests in mass spectrometry-based bioanalytical chemistry, with emphasis on quantitative proteomics, post-translational modifications of proteins, chemical proteomics, and DNA adduct analysis; Synthetic chemistry, with emphasis on the synthesis of modified nucleosides and nucleic acids; Molecular biology: with interests in understanding the biological consequences and repair of DNA damage; Epigenetics: with focus being placed on understanding the biological consequences of post-translational modifications of core histone proteins and post-transcriptional modifications of RNA.

Professor S. Simon Wong* Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, U.S.A.

Interests in the technology and design of silicon integrated circuits, fabrication and design of high-performance integrated circuits and understanding and overcoming the limitations of circuit performance imposed by device, interconnect and on-chip components.

Professor David Wong* Professor, Geography & GeoInformation Science, George Mason University, U.S.A.

Interests in Population, spatial statistics, Geography of China, Thoughts and Methodology.

Professor Shihe Yang* Professor (Director of Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Nano-Micro Materials Research), The School of Chemical Biology and Biotechlogy, Peking University Shenzhen, China

Interests in Physical Chemistry, Materials Chemistry and Physics, Nanomaterials, Optoelectronic Materials, Solar Cells, Solar Fuels.

Ir Professor Pak-leung Yuen Past President, the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers

Interests in Building & Construction, Environmental, Design, Engineering Management, Thermal, Fuel Engineering, Infection/ Parasitology, Water, and Power System.


* Members outside Hong Kong