Lai Chean Hung

Lai Chean Hung serves as Associate Dean for Accreditation and Curriculum Enhancement and Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak. Holding Chartered Engineer status with the UK's Institution of Engineering and Technology, he leads research in energy systems and smart technologies while shaping curriculum development across engineering disciplines.

His educational background includes a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Robotics & Mechatronics (2006) and PhD in Engineering (2012), both from Swinburne University of Technology. Prior to academia, he gained industry experience as Senior Process Leader at Taiyo Yuden Sarawak and Project Engineer at Elite Industries.

Dr. Lai's research centers on Energy Management Systems and Hybrid Energy Storage for rural microgrids, complemented by work in Control Systems, Robotics and Automation, and IoT-enabled Smart Systems. His recent publications demonstrate a clear trajectory toward practical implementations of battery-supercapacitor hybrid storage solutions for standalone photovoltaic systems in resource-constrained environments.

His publication analysis reveals dominant themes in renewable energy integration (60% of recent work), MEMS reliability engineering (25%), and smart infrastructure development (15%), with strong emphasis on rural electrification challenges in Southeast Asia.

• Best Paper Award at 4th International Conference on Clean Energy and Technology (2016)
• Best Paper Award at 13th International UNIMAS Engineering Conference (2020)

As an active grant recipient, Dr. Lai has secured over RM 400,000 in research funding since 2014, primarily as Principal Investigator for industry partnerships. His current projects focus on cloud-based contract administration, legal document retrieval systems, and smart parking solutions. While specific student counts aren't published, he explicitly invites PhD and Master's candidates in his core research areas, emphasizing practical applications for rural communities.

Dr. Lai maintains strong industry connections through consultancy projects and collaborates internationally on ASEAN-focused renewable energy initiatives, bridging academic research with real-world engineering challenges in Sarawak and beyond.