Profiles of FCE recipients

Professor Hua is currently Deputy Dean of the College of Civil Engineering at Hunan University, as well as Director of its Wind Engineering Research Center. He also serves as the Director of Provincial Key Laboratory of Wind and Bridge Engineering in Hunan Province.

After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Central South University, China, he was conferred a PhD degree by PolyU’s Department of Civil and Structural Engineering. Upon graduation, Prof. Hua started his academic career as a Research Assistant at PolyU before joining the College of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, where he was promoted to full professor in 2013. 

Prof. Hua has published over 120 journal papers (about 90 in SCI journals) and two books, and was granted ten invention patents. His research interests cover structural health monitoring, wind-induced vibration and vibration control of flexible structures, such as long-span bridges and offshore wind turbines. In numerous consultancy projects commissioned by industries in the contexts of wind-induced vibration and vibration control, he was appointed Principal Investigator. For his fruitful research endeavours, the National Natural Science foundation (NSFC) of China bestowed the awards of Excellent Young Youth and Distinguished Young Youth upon him. He was a proud receiver of awards from the State Council, MOE and Hunan province.

Ir Lau, Permanent Secretary for Development (Works) of the HKSAR Government, has demonstrated exemplary leadership and made tremendous contributions to the local construction industry over the past three decades. In 2018, he took up the post of Director of Civil Engineering and Development cum Commissioner of Mines of the HKSAR Government, overseeing various mega-sized projects of reclamation and infrastructures. They include the proposed Kau Yi Chau artificial islands under the Lantau Tomorrow Vision and other New Development Areas (NDA). His advocacy for the “Construction 2.0” strategy, leveraging technologies through the Construction Innovation and Technology Fund (CITF), has taken the strategic development of the industry to a new horizon. In 2020 and early 2022, to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic, he led various Works Departments of the HKSAR Government to build quarantine, isolation and treatment facilities within an extremely tight time frame.

Ir Lau has been instrumental in encouraging young professionals to contribute to community building, and in promoting collaborations between the academia and industry practitioners for innovative engineering advancements and betterment of the community at large. He currently chairs the Departmental Advisory Committee of PolyU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE).

Dr Song is the Founder and CEO of Leadus Glass Technology (Shenzhen) Company Limited, an award-winning enterprise nationally recognised for cutting-edge R&D and commercialisation of Vacuum Insulated Glazing, an original invention by Dr Song and his team.

His company was named a National High-tech Enterprise, a Shenzhen High-tech Enterprise, and one of the top 100 Enterprises in Longhua District, Shenzhen. Their invention, Vacuum Insulated Glazing, won the accolades of Excellent Product in the 21st China International Hi-Tech Product Award, Kungpeng Award & Emerging Technology Talents Award in the Guangdong High-Tech Industry Chamber Award, and Golden Award in the FENESTRATION BAU China Award. 

In addition, Dr Song actively pursues his philanthropic passion. Throughout the years, he has cumulatively donated over RMB 3 million-worth of equipment to research institutes while making generous donations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Acting as a bridge between academics and the industry, Dr Song has been actively collaborating with PolyU for knowledge transfer and commercialisation of technologies, sponsoring research projects and offering internship opportunities to students.

Professor Pei works at Dalian University of Technology and has won the National Science Fund for Excellent Youth Scholars. He has made extraordinary achievements on the forefront of data-driven slope stability analysis, geotechnical monitoring instruments, and soil-water interaction mechanisms via molecular simulations. 

His geotechnical instruments and theoretical models were deployed in several key projects, including the Xinpu landslide in the Three Gorges reservoir area, the West Pit in China’s Liaoning Province, and the Weijiagou landslide in Wenchuan earthquake zone. He was in charge of two general projects and one young scientist project under the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and two sub-projects under China’s National Key Research and Development Program. With more than 50 SCI-indexed journal papers published and an h-index of 20 according to Scopus, Prof. Pei is among the first cohort of scientists in the Xingliao Talent program of Liaoning Province, and one of the youth science and technology stars in Dalian.

Highly active in the professional community, Prof. Pei is also a Field Monitoring Committee Member of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), an Editorial Board Member of Geoenvironmental Disasters, and a Member of the International Consortium on Geo-disaster Reduction (ICGdR).