Dr. Difan Zou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong's School of Computing and Data Science. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from UCLA and degrees in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). His research focuses on machine learning theory, optimization, and learning structured data such as time-series and graph data, with an emphasis on understanding deep learning's theoretical underpinnings like optimization trajectories and generalization properties. Dr. Zou's academic background includes a B.S. from USTC's School of Gifted Young (Applied Physics) and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the same institution. His work bridges theoretical foundations and practical applications, addressing challenges in adversarial robustness, algorithm design for deep neural networks, and explainable machine learning systems in healthcare and finance. His research projects aim to establish rigorous frameworks for deep learning optimization, develop efficient training algorithms, and integrate conventional statistical models with machine learning for improved interpretability. He has received the Bloomberg Data Science Ph.D. Fellowship and has contributed to top-tier conferences like ICML, NeurIPS, and ICLR.
Hailiang Chen serves as Professor in Innovation and Information Management, Assistant Dean (Taught Postgraduate), and Director of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute at HKU Business School, The University of Hong Kong. His academic journey includes a PhD and MS from Purdue University and a BM from Tsinghua University. Doctoral Degree: Management Information Systems, Purdue University Master Degree: Economics, Purdue University Bachelor Degree: Information Management and Information Systems, Tsinghua University Professor Chen's research spans artificial intelligence, FinTech, social media analytics, and platform economics, with significant contributions to understanding how digital interactions shape financial markets and consumer behavior. His work frequently examines the intersection of technology adoption and economic outcomes, particularly in cryptocurrency markets, live-stream commerce, and venture capital decision-making. His research methodology combines large-scale data analysis with experimental designs to uncover causal relationships in digital ecosystems. His publications in elite journals like Journal of Financial Economics and Management Science demonstrate consistent impact, with multiple ESI Highly Cited Papers. Current projects include Gov-RAG for e-government services and comparative studies of AI search tools. His research has received continuous funding from Hong Kong's Research Grants Council for five consecutive years (2019-2023). Faculty Outstanding Researcher Award, HKU Business School (2022-23) INFORMS ISS Sandra A. Slaughter Early Career Award (2022) Association for Information Systems Early Career Award (2019) Three ESI Highly Cited Papers (Top 1% in field) Professor Chen actively contributes to academic service as Associate Editor for Journal of Management Information Systems and MIS Quarterly , and serves as Program Chair for the International Conference on Smart Finance. His industry collaborations include Alibaba, HSBC, and China Construction Bank, bridging academic research with real-world business applications in AI implementation and digital transformation.
Hongyu Liu is a Chair Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Department of Mathematics, City University of Hong Kong. His research spans inverse problems, wave propagation, mathematical materials science, and game theory. He has authored books on spectral theory, inverse scattering, and numerical methods. Education: Not explicitly stated in text but inferred through academic rank and publications. Research Interests include: Inverse Problems and Imaging, Wave Propagation, Analysis and PDEs, Mathematical Materials Science, Scattering Theory, Game Theory, and Mathematical Biology. His work frequently addresses plasmon resonances, cloaking, and scattering theory applications. Publications focus on inverse scattering, mean field games, and elastic systems, with contributions to journals like Inverse Problems and SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics. He is also an editor for Communications on Analysis and Computation . Advising and grants are not detailed here, but his research group's activities imply significant contributions to collaborative projects.
Dr. Wan Renjie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Faculty of Science, Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). He holds a BEng in Network Engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and a PhD from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Prior to joining HKBU, he was a Wallenberg-NTU Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow (2020–2022) and a guest researcher at Peking University (2019–2020). His research focuses on computational photography, 3D vision, AI security, digital watermarking, and neural representations . He explores robustness and security in vision models, especially concerning NeRFs and 3D Gaussian Splatting, and develops methods for low-light enhancement, reflection removal, and domain adaptation. Dr. Wan has published in top-tier venues including TPAMI, IJCV, CVPR, ICCV, NeurIPS, AAAI, and ECCV . His recent work emphasizes copyright protection for neural 3D models , adversarial attacks in multimodal and event-based systems, and medical image reconstruction. He is actively mentoring PhD students and research assistants. VCIP 2020 Best Paper Award Outstanding Reviewer, ICCV 2019 He teaches courses such as Introduction to AI and ML (COMP3057) , AI Application Development (COMP3065) , and Python for Data Analysis and Machine Intelligence (COMP7035) . Dr. Wan leads a dynamic research group with ongoing projects on watermarking, 3D reconstruction, and AI security, and he is currently recruiting new PhD students and research assistants.
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.
Rynson W.H. Lau is a Professor of Computer Science at City University of Hong Kong (CityU), leading research in Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, and Deep Learning. He holds an Honorary Professorship at Swansea University. Previously, he served on faculties at Durham University and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His work focuses on advancing graphics and vision techniques, including deep learning applications for graphics/vision problems, with publications in top venues like SIGGRAPH, CVPR, and NeurIPS. He has received the Adobe Research Gift (2023) and the Springer Nature Editorial Contribution Award (2025) for his editorial contributions to the International Journal of Computer Vision . Education: B.Sc. (First-class Honors) in Computer Systems Engineering from University of Kent Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Cambridge Research Interests: Computer Graphics: Focused on 3D reconstruction, rendering, and real-time performance capture. Computer Vision: Specializing in saliency detection, object recognition, and low-light scene enhancement. Deep Learning: Developing generative models and diffusion-based frameworks for graphics and vision tasks. Editorial Roles: Editorial Board Member, International Journal of Computer Vision and IET Computer Vision . Guest Editor for special issues in journals like ACM Transactions on Internet Technology and IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. Teaching: 2024/25 Academic Year: CS4185: Multimedia Technologies and Applications CS4188/CS5188: Virtual Reality Technologies and Applications Research Team: Advises over 20+ students and collaborates internationally. Recent projects include AI-driven VR systems for healthcare and advanced 3D content generation using diffusion models.
Oscar Carl Olof Dahlsten is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at City University of Hong Kong. He works in the field of quantum information science with research spanning information thermodynamics, foundations of quantum theory, and quantum computation and machine learning. His academic journey includes training at Imperial College and previous positions at ETH Zurich, NUS Singapore, Oxford University, and SUSTech before joining CityUHK. Dahlsten's research interests focus on the intersection of quantum mechanics and information theory. His work explores how quantum systems process information, the thermodynamic implications of quantum operations, and the application of quantum principles to computational problems. Key areas include quantum causal inference, quantum energy harvesting, black hole information theory, and quantum machine learning algorithms. His fingerprint analysis shows strong contributions to Quantum Theory (100%), Statistical Mechanics (55%), Quantum Dot physics (55%), and Free Energy concepts (40%). Recent publications demonstrate a strong trend toward experimental validation of quantum information concepts, particularly in quantum causal inference and quantum thermodynamics. His work bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications, especially in energy harvesting and quantum computing. The integration of quantum principles with thermodynamic laws appears as a consistent theme across his recent publications. Dahlsten currently serves as Principal Investigator for the GRF project 'Exploiting Quantum Systems for More Efficient Extraction of Energy From Random Sources' starting September 1, 2025. He actively supervises PhD students in quantum information science and is accepting new PhD candidates. His research group focuses on cutting-edge problems at the intersection of quantum information, thermodynamics, and computation.
Peter W. Glynn is the Thomas Ford Professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) at Stanford University's School of Engineering, and also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Additionally, he serves as a Senior Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study at City University of Hong Kong. His distinguished career spans over four decades, with significant contributions to the fields of simulation, computational probability, and stochastic modeling. Professor Glynn received his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University in 1982 and his B.S. with Honors in Mathematics from Carleton University in 1978. His academic journey began at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1982-1987) before returning to Stanford, where he has held various leadership positions including Deputy Chair of MS&E (1999-2005), Director of Stanford's Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (2006-2010), and Chair of MS&E (2011-2015). His research interests focus on simulation , computational probability , queueing theory , statistical inference for stochastic processes , and stochastic modeling . Professor Glynn's work has developed algorithms widely used across the field of Monte Carlo simulation, with applications in financial risk management, service systems engineering, logistics, and retail operations. His recent publications demonstrate continued innovation in areas such as numerical methods for stochastic systems, rare-event simulation, and analysis of queueing systems under various traffic conditions, showing a strong trajectory of advancing both theoretical foundations and practical applications. Professor Glynn's scholarly contributions have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including: Fellow of INFORMS (2007) Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (1998) John von Neumann Theory Prize from INFORMS (2010) Member of the US National Academy of Engineering (2012) Lifetime Professional Achievement Award, INFORMS Simulation Society (2021) Philip McCord Morse Lecturer, INFORMS (2020) Throughout his career, Professor Glynn has mentored numerous doctoral students whose research has made significant contributions to operations research and related fields. His editorial service has been extensive, including founding Editor-in-Chief of Stochastic Systems and service on the editorial boards of leading journals in operations research, probability, and statistics. His professional service extends to numerous advisory boards and committees at national and international levels, reflecting his standing as a leader in his field.
Professor Hongbin Cai serves as Dean and Chair Professor of Economics at the Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Hong Kong. He also directs the Institute of China Economy and holds significant advisory roles including on the Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive's Policy Unit and the Northern Metropolitan Region Advisory Committee. Previously, he was Dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University from December 2010 to January 2017. Professor Cai's educational background includes: Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Wuhan University (1988) Master's degree in Economics from Peking University (1991) Doctorate in Economics from Stanford University (1997) Professor Cai's research focuses on game theory, industrial organization, corporate finance, and the Chinese economy. His work bridges theoretical economic frameworks with practical applications in China's economic development and Hong Kong's economic challenges. He has been particularly active in analyzing Hong Kong's economic structural transformation, the impact of geopolitical shifts on its intermediary economy, and strategies for building a knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy. His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on Hong Kong's economic challenges in the post-pandemic era, with particular attention to economic structural transformation, talent development, and the evolving role of Hong Kong within China's "dual circulation" strategy. His work consistently emphasizes the need for Hong Kong to leverage its unique advantages while addressing long-standing structural weaknesses in its economy. Professor Cai has received numerous prestigious awards: New Century Excellent Talent by the Ministry of Education (2006) National Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (2007) Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor by the Ministry of Education (2008) Elected Fellow of the Econometric Society (2011) As an academic leader, Professor Cai has supervised numerous doctoral students and has been instrumental in recruiting 45 international experts to the HKU School of Business and Economics since 2017. He has championed initiatives to strengthen HKU's research capabilities on Hong Kong's economy, including the development of an "Economic Policy Green Paper" specifically tailored for Hong Kong. His leadership has overseen significant growth in student enrollment and plans for a new campus on Pokfield Road. Professor Cai founded and directs the Institute of China Economy at HKU, which serves as a platform for research on China's economic development and its implications for Hong Kong and the global economy. The Institute has organized major forums, including the 2024 China and Global Economy Forum, bringing together leading economists and business leaders to analyze China's economic future.
Ka Ho Chow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong, part of the School of Computing and Data Science. He holds a PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology and was previously a research scientist at IBM Research. His research focuses on the intersection of machine learning, cybersecurity, and scalable systems, emphasizing trustworthy AI and defense against security/privacy threats in federated learning, large language models, and visual recognition systems. Key achievements include IBM PhD Fellowship (2022) and Croucher Scholarship (2021). Education: PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Tech (2020), advised by Prof. Ling Liu. His work spans algorithmic optimization, infrastructure resilience, and adversarial machine learning. Current research explores attack-resilient solutions for centralized/federated learning and AI system vulnerabilities. Recent articles highlight innovations in federated learning security, gradient inversion attacks, backdoor detection, and privacy-preserving techniques. He has openings for PhD students interested in AI security and trustworthy systems. His lab collaborates on projects involving blockchain fraud detection (ZipZap), facial recognition privacy (Personalized Masks), and graph neural network robustness. Awards: IBM PhD Fellowship (2022), Croucher Scholarship (2021). Active in guiding PhD candidates and advising on microservices cloud migration (Atlas/SCAD systems). Research outputs include over 30 peer-reviewed papers spanning cybersecurity, AI ethics, and distributed learning frameworks.
Dr. YANG, Renchi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Hong Kong Baptist University, Faculty of Science. He earned his BEng in Software Engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and his PhD in Computer Science from Nanyang Technological University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the National University of Singapore. His research is centered on developing efficient algorithms and systems for large-scale data management and analysis. His research interests include: Big Data Management and Analysis Graph Learning and Network Embedding Databases and Data Management (especially graph query processing and similarity search) The Web and Information Retrieval (search, ranking, recommendation, web mining) Data Mining and Machine Learning (social network analysis, text mining, large language models) Dr. Yang’s recent publications span top conferences such as KDD, SIGMOD, WWW, ICDE, and AAAI, focusing on scalable graph clustering, network embedding, GNNs, and LLM integration. His work emphasizes algorithmic efficiency, scalability, and practical applications in real-world graph data. Scientific honors include: VLDB 2021 Best Research Paper Award 2022 ACM SIGMOD Research Highlight Award Best Paper Award Nominee in WWW 2022 Honorable mention as best PC member in WWW 2022 Dr. Yang actively mentors PhD and research students, currently supervising several RPg students including LIN Xiaoyang, LAI Yurui, and ZHENG Haoran. He has secured research funding enabling PhD scholarships and research assistant positions. He serves on the program committees of major conferences like VLDB, KDD, WWW, and SIGIR, and reviews for journals including TKDE and VLDBJ. He is a key member of the Database Research Group at HKBU, which has published extensively in top venues, including 8 papers at SIGMOD 2023. His research lab, the LAGAS Group, focuses on large-scale graph analytics and systems. The team is actively working on projects involving graph clustering, embedding, GNNs, and integration with large language models. Dr. Yang is currently recruiting PhD students for 2026 and research assistants for 2025, indicating active and expanding research operations.
Professor Li Chen is a full Professor and Associate Head (Research) in the Department of Computer Science at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), with an affiliate appointment at the Academy of Wellness and Human Development. She leads the Positive Intelligence Lab , focusing on intelligent technologies for human well-being. Her research spans conversational AI, explainable AI, recommender systems, and human-computer interaction. Education: PhD in Computer Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland (Nominee for Best PhD Thesis Award) Master in Computer Software and Theory, Peking University, China Bachelor in Computer Science, Peking University, China Her research interests revolve around personalized conversational and explainable AI, with applications in entertainment, education, e-commerce, and mental well-being. She has published over 150 papers in top venues including ACM TOIS, IJHCS, CHI, SIGIR, AAAI, RecSys, and UMAP . Her work has been recognized with awards such as the RecSys Best Student Paper Award (2024), CHI Honourable Mention (2022), and multiple best paper awards at UMAP and UMUAI. The most recent publications reflect a strong trend toward fair, explainable, and user-centric recommender systems , with increasing integration of large language models , mental health applications , and conversational agents . Her research emphasizes user feedback, negative sampling techniques, and evaluation frameworks grounded in real user behavior. Scientific Awards & Recognition: President’s Award for Outstanding Performance in Teaching (Individual), HKBU (2024/25) President’s Award for Outstanding Performance in Research Supervision (2022/23) World’s Top 2% Most-Cited Scientists, Stanford University (2021–2024) ACM Senior Member (2015) RecSys’24 Best Student Paper Award CHI’22 Honourable Mention Award UMAP’20 Best Student Paper Award UMUAI 2018 Best Paper Award THE Awards Asia 2021 Excellence and Innovation in the Arts (Co-I) Professor Chen is actively involved in mentoring PhD and Master’s students such as Wanling Cai and Yuhan Zhao, who have co-authored award-winning papers. She has secured research funding through grants like the HKBU IRCMS Project. Her editorial leadership includes serving as Co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Recommender Systems (TORS) , Associate Editor for ACM TiiS , and Editorial Board Member for UMUAI . She has chaired major conferences including ACM RecSys’23 (General Co-Chair), RecSys’20 (Program Co-Chair), and UMAP’18 (Program Co-Chair). She leads the Positive Intelligence Lab , which conducts interdisciplinary research on AI for well-being. The lab has developed datasets like the Intent Annotation of Recommendation Dialogue (IARD) and focuses on user-centric AI design, mental health chatbots, and personalized recommendation interfaces.
Dr. Bruno C.d.S. Oliveira is an Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong's School of Computing and Data Science (SCDS), Department of Computer Science. He holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford (2008). Prior to his current position since 2013, he served as Research Professor at Seoul National University (2009-2011) and Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore (until 2013). His research interests focus on Programming Languages , Modularity , Functional Programming , and Object-Oriented Programming . His work emphasizes foundational aspects like type systems, language design, and extensibility mechanisms. Notable articles include studies on type class implementations, functional graph programming, and meta-theoretical frameworks for programming language constructs. His research has been published in top venues such as POPL, PLDI, ECOOP, and ICFP. No scientific awards are explicitly mentioned in the provided text. Advising records and grant details are not listed, though his academic homepage at http://www.cs.hku.hk/~bruno may contain additional information.
Dr. ir. Gerhard Bruyns is a tenured Associate Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , where he serves as Associate Dean (Academic Programmes) and Director of RPg Studies . Previously, he held tenured positions at the Delft University of Technology , Netherlands, in both the Delft School of Design and the Department of Urbanism. His expertise spans spatial morphology, volumetric urbanism, and critical environments in dense urban contexts.
Jeffrey C. F. Ho is an Associate Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He serves as Deputy Specialism Leader of Interaction Design and Chairman of the School Learning & Teaching Committee. His research centers on virtual reality (VR) and interaction design, applying social science principles to influence attitudes and behaviors through immersive technologies. He leads projects in VR applications for safety training, virtual museums, and healthcare, and collaborates with the Asian Lifestyle Design Lab and the Technology and Social Behavior Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. PhD in Communication, City University of Hong Kong MSc in Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics, University College London MPhil in Computer Science, The University of Hong Kong BEng in Software Engineering, The University of Hong Kong Ho’s research explores VR’s role in perspective-taking experiences, focusing on empathy, prosocial behavior, and spatial cognition. His work bridges VR with public health, education, and cultural preservation, such as designing VR environments for elderly care and dietary reflection. His recent publications highlight trends in generative AI ethics, beginner-friendly design software, and spatio-social impacts in VR applications. His articles span virtual reality games, VR safety training, and interactive museum design, with keywords like Virtual Reality, Human-Computer Interaction, and Cultural Preservation. Key subfields include immersive technology, social behavior analysis, and ethical design frameworks. UGC Teaching Award - Nominee (2024) Best Paper Award, EAI ArtsIT 2020 (2020) Exemplary Teaching and Learning Award - Merit (2024) QS Reimagine Education Awards 2024 - Global Education Award (2024) QS Reimagine Education Awards 2024 - Gold Award in Smart Omnichannel Campus (2024) Ho has secured grants from Hong Kong’s Research Grant Council, including HK$678,607 for immersive VR construction safety training (2024–2026) and HK$741,961 for VR safety education focusing on accident victims (2021–2023). He contributes as a reviewer for journals like Universal Access in the Information Society and Frontiers in Psychology , and leads teaching initiatives in information architecture and interactive media design.
