HKU Bulletin September 2007 (Vol. 9 No. 1)

30 31 Dr Patrick Ng Tuen Wai Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics N g’s main research interest is function theory, in particular the complex dynamics of meromorphic functions. Complex dynamics studies how a function behaves under repeated substitutions, and its behaviour can be represented graphically by Julia Sets. One distinctive property of the Julia Set is its self-similarity and its extremely chaotic dynamics. Dr Ng has obtained the strongest results for two long-standing conjectures on Julia Sets, and has also obtained the first and the best published result so far on Smale’s mean value conjecture, a classic outstanding mathematical problem with important applications in complex dynamics and the study of Newton’s method. ntw@maths.hku.hk http://hkumath.hku.hk/~ntw/index.html Outstanding Young Researcher Awards Dr Becky Loo Pui Ying Associate Professor, Department of Geography D r Loo uses surveys, quantitative techniques and spatial modelling to examine the spatial dimension of transport and development. She has published a set of articles on people’s travel preferences and how they relate to the evolution of the city structure, and another set of articles on road safety. She recently identified major hazardous road sections of Hong Kong’s road network by using and refining the so-called ‘hot- zone’ methodology. Her research on the Internet and the spatial movement of passengers and freight, especially container freight, has attracted considerable attention both in Hong Kong and abroad. bpyloo@hkucc.hku.hk http://geog.hku.hk/staff/loo.htm