Professor Alan LAU Kin-tak

Recipient of 2013 UGC Teaching Award

Affiliation at the time of the award
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Award Citation
Professor Lau is an inspiring teacher, an accomplished researcher and a recognised expert in the field of mechanical and aerospace engineering, materials science and product design. He believes in engaging the real world in his teaching. He has taken the partnership between academics and industry to a new level. Over a carefully planned program that runs over a three-year period, students are introduced to the perspectives of industry and to real-world training in design. Finally they create and promote a real product. The result is a deeply engaged, synergistic relationship between the students and the companies, with the firms benefitting from the solutions posed by these students as the students profiting from their professional development. What Professor Lau calls his "Industry-Engaged Outcome-Based Approach" results in a true collaboration between the academic and industrial sectors.

Professor Lau plans to use the award grant to pass on his experience in university-industry collaboration to junior faculty members of different departments and disciplines to help them in curricula that combines both the academic with the practical.

Video on Teaching Philosophies