PolyU President’s Awards and Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2023

The President’s Awards and the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement are two tiers of awards established to recognise and celebrate the remarkable contributions of staff members. Categorised into individual and team awards, the honours are given in the areas of Teaching, Research and Scholarly Activities, Knowledge Transfer, and Services.

Congratulations to all the awarded individuals and teams of 2023 on their distinguished accomplishments.

* Team leader for the group

FCE alumnus receives Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award 2023

The Faculty is happy to share that FCE alumnus and also one of the awardees of the 2023 FCE Outstanding Alumni Award, Sr Dr Tin-cheung CHEUNG, has been conferred the 2023 Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award in Professional Achievement by the University.

Dr Cheung is currently the Chairman of the Hong Kong Green Building Council. He has served in the Hong Kong government for over three decades with tenures spanning various departments. During his tenure as the Director of Buildings, he led the Buildings Department to review and develop policies and strategies that greatly enhanced building safety in Hong Kong. Dr Cheung accepted the honour along with four other awardees at the award ceremony held on 19 December 2023 at Hotel ICON under the witness of over 200 guests.

The Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award aims to give recognition to distinguished graduates of PolyU for great distinction in their chosen fields, active support to their alma mater, as well as impactful contributions to the wider community.

Inaugural J.M. Ko Award honours two young researchers in structural engineering

The J.M. Ko Award, which is named after PolyU’s first Chair Professor of Structural Engineering and current Emeritus Professor (Structural Engineering) - Prof. Jan-ming KO, was established by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) in 2023 to recognise exceptional young researchers around the world who have made outstanding contributions of high originality and lasting importance to the science and technology of structural engineering. At the inaugural award ceremony & International Symposium on Advances in Structural Engineering held on 19 January 2024, two exceptional young researchers, Prof. Eleni CHATZI of ETH Zurich and Prof. Xinzheng LU of Tsinghua University, were honoured.

The two awardees each delivered a distinguished lecture after the ceremony, followed by invited presentations from six esteemed scholars in the structural engineering field from Mainland China, Japan, the United States and Australia. Also attended the event were Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, President of PolyU, Prof. Xiang-dong LI, Dean of Faculty, and Ms Lilian CHEONG, Under Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry of the HKSAR.

FCE academic wins Excellence Award in APEC urban technology competition

Prof. Jianlei NIU, Chair Professor of Building Environment and Energy of the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE), has been recently honoured with an Excellence Award at the Innovating for Public Urban Technology Transformation Competition (INPUT 2) for the project “Human-oriented outdoor thermal environment evaluation and optimization design”. Prof. Niu and his research team developed a simulation tool for assessing outdoor pedestrian thermal comfort levels and a logical design for optimising cooling strategies, including a novel membrane-assisted radiant panel that enhances localised spot-cooling effects. The innovation can promote the utilisation of outdoor spaces by residents and reduce the reliance on air conditioning systems, which will ultimately help reduce city-wide energy consumption.

The INPUT2 competition was initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and supported by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to promote the idea of sustainable urban development, exchange and cooperation in innovation and application of scientific and technological achievements, as well as to improve industrial development and urban governance in the 21 APEC member economies.

FCE Chair Professor to lead new research centre in GeoAI

FCE is a strong advocate for interdisciplinary research at PolyU. Sharing the same belief, FCE academics play substantial roles in PolyU’s university-level research centres.

The recently established Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Geomatics (RCAIG) led by Prof. Qihao WENG, Chair Professor of Geomatics and Artificial Intelligence of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI), is a joint effort of experts from five PolyU academic departments. Under Prof. Weng’s leadership as the Principal Investigator, the RCAIG will focus on the development of innovative AI technologies for solving environmental and societal challenges in geomatics, aiming to become a global R&D hub in GeoAI. The Faculty believes that the concerted efforts of these top-notch experts across disciplines would maximise our endeavours to advance the field of GeoAI.

Interdisciplinary research by FCE scholar benefits 100 million smart devices globally

The Faculty is pleased to share the recent interdisciplinary research excellence in colour science by Prof. Tommy WEI of the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE). A series of colour management technologies developed by Prof. Wei and his research team have been successfully commercialised and widely adopted by social media, imaging systems and manufacturers of LED lighting products, smartphones and drones, powering over 100 million high-end smart devices worldwide each year.

Being the Director of the Colour Imaging and Metaverse Research Centre, Prof. Wei aspires to develop a new algorithm based on human visual mechanisms to improve colour appearance and calibrate perception variance across imaging systems. To further extend the impact of his research beyond academia, Prof. Wei co-founded a start-up named Guardian Glow which focuses on the development of personalised AI smart devices and solutions for key technologies used in Extended Reality headsets.

LSGI PhD student wins First Place Award in UN Datathon China Division

Mr Songyang LI, a PhD student of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI), teamed up with students from the Department of Applied Mathematics (AMA) and The University of Hong Kong (HKU) as “Sustainable Roaming” and won the First Place Award at the United Nations (UN) Datathon China Division. The winning project “China-Africa Cooperation: Shared Prosperity for Sustainable Development” investigated the China-Africa cooperation projects over the past 20 years by utilising multi-source satellite datasets and World Bank open-access data. The team created an online platform to visualise the cooperation projects’ impact and contribution to the sustainable development of African countries. The project serves as a potential technical support to further advocate the cooperation framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and Sino-foreign relations.

Organised by the UN Statistics Division, the 2023 UN Datathon brought together talented individuals from around the world to showcase their innovative data-driven applications and tools developed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This year, the UN Datathon held its first China Division competition at the UN Global Platform for Big Data China Hub (UNBDC) in Hangzhou. Around 100 teams from China's top universities, research institutions and enterprises competed in the intense 3-day Datathon in November 2023.

BEEE Ug graduate wins Merit Award in Best URIS Research Project Award 2023

To nurture the next generation of intellectuals and promote undergraduate (Ug) research, the Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scheme (URIS) administered by the Graduate School (GS) provides Ug students with an enquiry-based learning opportunity to develop sound research, enhance research competence and establish research connections under the supervision of the Faculty’s top-notch academics.

Ms Ying Tung LAM, a graduate from BEng (Hons) Building Services Engineering, recently received the URIS 2021/22 Cohort - Best URIS Research Project Award (Merit) for her project “Study of Fire Impact on Glass Panels”. Supervised by Dr Liming JIANG, Assistant Professor of the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE), Ms Lam’s project investigated fire development mechanisms in building compartments with large glass facades and windows, leading to a novel fire control strategy 'active opening' and potentially reforming the window design of buildings.

Students who are successfully admitted to the two-year URIS programme will automatically become members of the College of Undergraduate Researchers and Innovators (CURI). They will be eligible to attend CURI activities and apply for funding schemes. For more information about the URIS programme, please visit https://www.polyu.edu.hk/gs/ug-research/uris/application-for-uris/.

Prof. Jerry Yan elected HKAES Fellow

Prof. Jerry YAN, Chair Professor of Energy and Buildings of the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE), has been elected Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences (HKAES), in recognition of his outstanding research achievements and leadership in the fields of energy systems, renewable energy, climate-change mitigation and related environmental policies.

Founded in 1994, HKAES is a professional engineering organisation of Hong Kong’s most eminent engineers of various disciplines, with its Fellowship dedicated to serving Hong Kong, Mainland China and the region with top-quality engineering expertise. Prof. Yan is one of the two PolyU scholars who were elected as 2023 Fellows.

Long Service Award 2023

We are delighted to announce that 44 FCE staff were honoured for their loyal service in the Long Service Award 2023. The award is given to staff members upon completing each five-year service period. A number of the awardees have been serving PolyU for 25 years or more.

The PolyU Long Service Award scheme was first introduced in 1990 to recognise long-serving staff for their dedication and commitment to PolyU, and to foster a sense of belonging among staff. This year, President Prof. Jin-Guang TENG held a tea gathering on 21 February 2024 at Hotel ICON to share the joy with the awardees. The awardees also received a certificate and a souvenir as a token of appreciation from the University.

Congratulations to the awardees and thanks for their years of devotion which have been instrumental to FCE’s growth and accomplishments over the years.