Tak-Wah Lam

Professor Tak-Wah Lam is a leading academic at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), serving as Deputy Director of the School of Computing & Data Science and former Head of the Computer Science Department (2018–2023). He joined HKU in 1988 after earning his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington. His research spans algorithm design, bioinformatics, and big data analytics, with a focus on applications in health informatics and genomics. He has published over 200 articles, including influential work on bioinformatics software like MEGAHIT and Clair3. He is a Charivate Highly Cited Researcher (2017) and has received multiple grants, including ITF-funded projects totaling over HKD 33 million for research in genomic databases, AI-driven RegTech, and bioinformatics solutions for clinical genetics.

Education: BSc from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), MS and PhD from the University of Washington.

Research interests include algorithms, bioinformatics, and big data analytics. His work bridges theoretical computer science with practical applications in healthcare, such as developing tools for variant calling, genome assembly, and disease risk prediction. He co-founded a startup in 2014 to advance bioinformatics software for clinical DNA sequencing.

Key grants include:

• ITF Tier-2 Project (2021–2023): HKD 7 million for automated karyotype analysis
• ITF Tier-2 Project (2019–2021): HKD 5 million for AI-driven RegTech
• ITF Tier-2 Project (2015–2020): HKD 7.6 million for precision medicine genomic databases

He is also recognized for teaching excellence, having received awards from HKU's Faculty of Engineering and the Department of Computer Science.