The Faculty Distinguished Lecture Series was exclusively hosted throughout the academic year of 2018-19 to celebrate CUHK's 55th anniversary. Ten important topics on a broad array of stimulating science areas were brought forward for discussion by world renowned scholars and leading scientists.

Professor Lam Hon Ming from School of Life Sciences and Professor Chu Ming Chung from Department of Physics gave lectures in "The Pursuit of Wisdom" Public Lecture Series in celebration of CUHK's 55th anniversary. Both of them shared their experiences and research achievements with the audience; each of the fruitful sharing and discussion had also attracted around 200 participants to join.

The Research Day 2019 focusing on strategic collaborative research was held on 29 May, 2019. The presentations with diverse and rich content had also attracted over 60 faculty members to join.

After a full year of hard work, the Faculty held the Annual Tea Gathering on 8 July, 2019 at Foyer of Sir Run Run Shaw Hall to extend sincere gratitude and appreciation to all faculties and staff.

The Inauguration Ceremony for Undergraduates was held on 2 September, 2019 at Sir Run Run Shaw Hall. Professor Xie Zuowei welcomed new students in joining the Faculty. He described the four-year university life as planting a tree. Apart from absorbing new knowledge and skills as the nutrients essential to growing, he urged students to hold their curiosity and be inquisitive at all times to grow the seed and let it sprout, and think of joining different exchange and internship programmes to experience a new learning environment favourable for future development.

Professor Kim Chow and Professor Jack Wong from School of Life Sciences were invited to give a talk in the introductory lecture for The Shaw Prize Lecture in Life Science and Medicine organised by Shaw College. They had presentation on the topic of "With DNA repair: double loss (break) is not scary at all" on 19 September, 2019 at YIA LT3.

Professor Xu Lei and Dr. Shen Hongchuan from Department of Physics worked with scientists from the mainland China and Japan in finding out the new pattern-forming paradigm. They revealed that particle shape strongly influences the dynamic relaxations, which further helps understand structure formation, self-assembly, and packing, as well as shape a new direction to new material design and its rigidity and plasticity control.

Professor Edwin Chan from School of Life Sciences, Professor Li Huabai from Department of Physics, and Professor Amos Tai from Earth System Science Programme have been elected into the Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences (YASHK), a platform established with key missions to promote STEM education, knowledge transfer and a better research environment for young researchers. Professor Chan and Professor Tai also joined the inauguration ceremony held on 9 June, 2019 at Hong Kong Science Park.

University Publication

Professor Wong Po Keung from School of Life Sciences has been awarded the Research Excellence Award 2018-2019 in recognition of his outstanding research performance.  Professor Wong's research interest includes photocatalytic treatment for environmental/ water purification, environmental technology, and environmental microbiology/ biotechnology.

Professor Yeung Ying Yeung from Department of Chemistry has been awarded the Young Researcher Award 2018 to recognise his research accomplishments. His research interest lies in synthetic organic chemistry, novel methodologies development, and complex molecules synthesis.

Congratulations to Professor Wong and Professor Yeung!

Professor Wong Po Keung from School of Life Sciences employs magnetic natural materials to kill bacteria and remove impurities from polluted water. After experimenting with many other materials, he found that natural magnetic sphalerite can photocatalytically degrade organic material and reduce the amount of inorganic compounds in waste water as part of the process to purify contaminated water. He and his team also used thermal treatment to create magnetic materials with greater purity which can be safely used to treat water.

Mr. Wong Wai Kin and Mr. Woo Wang Chun, our physics alumni, developed an urban-scale nowcasting system, namely the Short-range Warning of Intense Rainstorms in Localized Systems (SWIRLS), for the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) which has been awarded the Smart Business Grand Award in the Hong Kong ICT Awards 2019.

Mr. Wong Ka Fai, who is at his second year of study of the MPhil-PhD degree in Mathematics, paired up with a postgraduate student from HKUST and has developed a mobile application named "NavDog" to support visually impaired people. With the seamless hybrid indoor and outdoor positioning technology, real-time navigation instruction, and instant alerting feedback system installed in NavDog, visually impaired people can now travel to anywhere safely, with confidence, and without barriers in both indoors and outdoors.

Three science alumni, Mr. Aldrin Yim, Mr. Allen Yu, and Mr. Marco Li founded a biotechnology company in 2013 specialising in genomics and bioinformatics.  Having heard about friends and relatives who passed away from cancer, they determined to make good use of their science knowledge to help those in need, and one of the possible ways is to search for suitable therapies for cancer patients by informing cancer drugs sensitivity and resistance.

Sunny Lau from Earth System Science Programme was selected by the Croucher Foundation to be the only student from Hong Kong in joining the International Science Summer Institute held in Israel from 2 to 25 July, 2019 for a four-week scientific research at Weizmann Institute of Science.

Wong Chak Kui, our chemistry graduate, has been awarded the University of Oxford Croucher Scholarship recently. The Scholarship not only offers full financial support to him during his pursuit of doctoral degree in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at University of Oxford, but also provides him with chances to connect with leading scientists through the Croucher network.

Dr. Matthew Hannah Gieuw, Ph.D. in Chemistry, has been selected for the Postgraduate Research Output Award 2018. His quality research output is "Lewis Base‐Promoted Ring‐Opening 1,3‐Dioxygenation of Unactivated Cyclopropanes Using a Hypervalent Iodine Reagent", Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol.57, pp.3782-3786. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201713422 (2018).

Dr. Chong Kai Leong, a physics Ph.D. graduate, has been selected for the CUHK Young Scholars Thesis Award 2018 in appreciation of the outstanding standard of his doctoral dissertation titled "Numerical Studies of Rayleigh-Bénard Turbulence".

We look forward to another fruitful academic year with our deanery members, who are:

We also extend our warm welcome to the newly-joined Associate Dean (Education), Professor Kwan Kin Ming.

Our faculty members receive Choh-Ming Li Professorships and Outstanding Fellowships in recognition of their remarkable performance in teaching and research, as well as their outstanding contributions to the Faculty and University. The Choh-Ming Li Professors and Outstanding Fellows will be provided with funds to support their academic and research pursuits during the appointment term.

Master's Degree 2018-19 Graduation Ceremony

Date: 8 November, 2019 (Friday)

Time: 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Venue: Sir Run Run Shaw Hall

Popular Science Special Lecture Series: How Nobel Prizes Are Won

Date: 30 November, 2019 (Saturday)

Time: 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon

Venue: YIA LT1

Academic Equipment Grant 2019/20 (2nd Round)
Submission Deadline to SFO: 4 November, 2019 (Monday)

Croucher Foundation – Sponsorship of Conferences, Workshops and Symposia 2020/21
ORKTS Internal Deadline: 26 November, 2019 (Tuesday), 5:00 p.m.

Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme 2020/21
RGC Initial Application Deadline: 2 December, 2019 (Monday), 12:00 noon (HKT)

Knowledge Transfer Project Fund 2019/20
ORKTS Internal Deadline: 11 December, 2019 (Wednesday)

Sustainable Knowledge Transfer Project Fund
ORKTS Internal Deadline: 11 December, 2019 (Wednesday)

European Union (EU) – HK Research & Innovation Cooperation Co-funding Mechanism by the RGC 2019/20 (2nd Call)
ORKTS Internal Deadline: 12 December, 2019 (Thursday)

HSBC Overseas Scholarship 2020/21
The scholarship supports local non-final-year full-time undergraduate students to study in an overseas university for either one semester or one academic year in the academic year 2020/21. Application must be submitted to OAFA on or before 12:00 noon, 30 December, 2019 (Monday). Visit admission.cuhk.edu.hk/scholarships/application.html for more details.

Non-EU Teaching Mobility Program at the University of Vienna 2019-20
The University of Vienna invites faculty members of CUHK to join its University for a short-term teaching visit which lasts for 3 weeks to 90 days. The teaching assignment comprises a blocked courses of 30 in-class contact hours; applications for courses planned between October 2020 and January 2020 should be submitted online by 1 February, 2020. Visit international.univie.ac.at/non-eu-teaching-mobility/ for more details.