HKU Bulletin May 2014 (Vol. 15 No.2)

OUTSTANDING RESEARCHER AWARD OUTSTANDING RESEARCHER AWARD Academic staff who have produced exceptional research of international merit are honoured with this award, which includes HK$250,000 to further their research. Professor Wang Wenping Department of Computer Science Professor Wang is interested in geometry, in particular its ability to help us create and visualise things through geometric computing, computer graphics, and data visualisation. It is an interest that earned him a State Scientific and Technological Progress Award (second class) in 2010 and that has seen him make fundamental contributions to computational algebraic geometry, shape modelling, mesh generation and architectural geometry. The latter is a field that is increasingly reliant on highly complex graphic input. “Many modern architects use free-form surfaces or wavy forms to define roofs and facades. Our research in architecture geometry asks how to design such surfaces and how to make them easy to manufacture,” he said. The water environment is another area of focus. His team has developed a data visualisation system for water environments that provides forecasting and other information that is useful to decision-makers and engineers, and that also helps the public to better understand their environment. “We hope our technology can be extended to the Greater China area and contribute to environmental protection there,” he said. Professor Lu Liwei Department of Pathology Professor Lu, who joined HKU in 2000 and is Professor of Immunology, is internationally recognised for his work on autoimmunity, in particular his work on rheumatoid arthritis, a crippling disease. His laboratory was among the first to successfully treat autoimmune arthritis by targeting the cytokine B-cell activating factor in a preclinical study in which the development of arthritis was successfully suppressed in mice. His ultimate goal is to achieve balance in the immune system. “If we are able to do this, we will be able to fight against infectious disease as well as other types of autoimmune diseases,” he said. “We believe our developed techniques will be used for treating other autoimmune diseases in future.” Although Professor Lu has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in leading immunology and rheumatology journals, and received numerous awards including the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship in 2012, he takes a very humble approach to his work. “Scientific research should be pursued with dedication as well as passion. Inner peace is also very important. Research should not be driven by fame or any material benefit,” he said. Professor Shen Shunqing Department of Physics To Professor Shen, the beauty of physics lies in its ability to provide simple yet elegant explanations. He likens it to a game played with smooth black and white stones. “We can use very simple ideas to understand complicated phenomena in nature,” he said. His research field is in condensed matter physics, in particular understanding the electrical and magnetic properties of materials at the level of electrons. Recently his team has pioneered a new field that is a synergy of topology, physics and material science, and he has been the first to publish a unified theory to describe topological materials in various forms. The importance of his work is evident in the field of electronics where devices are being made increasingly smaller and new materials are needed to contain them. He is particularly interested in the potential of ‘spintronics’ and has developed equations to help explain it. “Nature has the properties of spin, it is like a spinning top. I think in future a spin current may be used to replace electrical currents in electronic devices,” he said. Professor Sun Hongzhe Department of Chemistry As a recipient of the National Natural Science Foundation of China Outstanding Young Scholar Award (2005), a Croucher Senior Research Fellowship (2010–2011), and the HKU Outstanding Researcher Award (2009–2010), Professor Sun knows what it takes to succeed in research. He is passing his insights on to research students through a simple formula. “Provide them with encouragement, stimulation and training,” he said. Students are encouraged to do research at the frontier and aim for excellence, stimulated to keep going and find new ways of looking at their work, and provided with comprehensive training to help them succeed. PhD student Angel Lai said: “He has a free style of supervising. He gave me guidelines and pointed me to the area I should explore, then he let me go for it. I found unexpected results that made my story more interesting. His style is very good and even though it’s a free style, his expectations are very high.” Professor Sun added: “The numerous awards and prizes my students have received over the years and their postgraduate successes have given me much satisfaction.” OUTSTANDING RESEARCH STUDENT SUPERVISOR AWARD This award honours effort and success in helping to guide students towards research excellence. The winner receives HK$25,000 and a research postgraduate studentship. 32 | 33 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | May 2014 Teaching, Research and Knowledge Exchange Awards