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HKUST 2011-2012 Annual Report
Recognition of endeavor
Acknowledgement is an important way of recognizing
the hard work the faculty put in and fostering HKUST’s
dynamic campus environment.
HKUST faculty members’ achievements have been widely
recognized by an accolade of external recognitions.
Faculty received five of the most prestigious awards in
science and technology in China including the State
Natural Science Awards and the State Scientific and
Technological Progress Award — the largest number of
such awards among tertiary institutions in Hong Kong in
2011. Three Hong Kong faculty members were elected
to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, all of them HKUST
faculty members. HKUST also received three Ministry
of Education Awards for Research Excellence in Natural
Sciences. Nine faculty members were among the first
batch of Hong Kong scholars to be selected to join the
National Science and Technology Programmes Expert
Database. In further recognition of the excellence of
HKUST academics, six faculty members were elected
Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, bringing the total at HKUST to 27. Prof Nancy
Ip, Dean of Science, was bestowed Knight of l’Ordre
National du Mérite by the French President. Prof James
Lee, Dean of Humanities and Social Science, received
the Japanese Population Association’s Best Book in
Population Studies Award, a biennial prize for the co-
authored book
Prudence and Pressure: Reproduction and
Human Agency in Europe and Asia
, 1700-1900. Faculty
members from the School of Business and Management
have also won various awards including the Information
Systems Research’s “ISR Best Associate Editor Award”,
the Scholarly Achievement Award from the Academy
of Management (HR division) and the Frank M Bass
Dissertation Paper Award from the Institute for Operations
Research and the Management Sciences.
The annual Michael G Gale Medal for Distinguished
Teaching highlights one faculty member across the
University for his or her outstanding teaching capabilities.
In 2011-12, the Medal was awarded to Prof Amine
Bermak, Department of Electronic and Computer
Engineering. At the School level, there are long-standing
teaching awards that recognize faculty members. And in
an independent initiative, students vote annually for the
Best Ten Lecturers.
In the year under review, engineering faculty members’
outstanding research achievements were further
recognized when the first School of Engineering Research
Excellence Awards was presented in November 2011.
The annual awards honor the local and global research
achievements of four faculty members at different
stages of their career. In addition to an existing award
to recognize outstanding performance in teaching, the
School of Science introduced a new Research Award
during the year to show special appreciation of the
research excellence of young faculty members at the rank
of Assistant or Associate Professor.
