Meet Our Distinguished Scholars

Professor Defeng Sun is Chair Professor of Applied Optimisation and Operations Research and Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Professor Sun is an accomplished researcher in the field of optimisation and has published more than 110 papers in journals such as Mathematical Programming, the SIAM Journal on Optimisation, Mathematics of Operations Research, and Journal of Machine Learning Research.

He has made significant contributions to matrix optimisation, statistical optimisation, nonsmooth analysis, and risk management. In 2006, he made a breakthrough by settling the long-standing open question concerning characterizing the strong regularity of nonlinear semidefinite programming (SDP) problems. Professor Sun has also been a long-time advocate of incorporating nonsmooth analysis into solving large-scale conic optimisation problems, which has resulted in a series of rich outcomes. One career highlight is the triennial 2018 Beale--Orchard-Hays Prize for excellence in computational mathematical programming awarded to Professor Sun jointly with his collaborators Professor Kim-Chuan Toh and Dr Liuqin Yang for developing the software SDPNAL+ for solving large-scale SDP problems.

Professor Sun is a highly recognized scholar. He was elected a SIAM Fellow in 2020 by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics for his contributions to algorithms and software for conic optimisation, particularly matrix optimisation. In the same year, he was elected as an inaugural CSIAM Fellow in 2020 by the China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. In 2021, he received the “Distinguished Collaborator Award” from both the Huawei Hong Kong Research Center and Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab in recognition of his contributions in developing efficient and robust techniques for solving huge-scale linear programming models arising from production planning and supply chain logistics. In 2022, he received a prestigious RGC Senior Research Fellowship.

Last but not least, Professor Sun actively serves the academic community. He is the President of the Hong Kong Mathematical Society and serves as an associate editor to many journals such as Mathematical Programming, SIAM Journal on Optimisation, and Science China Mathematics. He has also been a Co-chair of the SIAM Conference on Optimisation 2021.