FH Dedicated Educators

FH recognises our dedicated educators.

Recipients of our Faculty Awards share a message to their fellow colleagues and students.

Medal of Honor for valuable contribution to HK education sector, especially in language education & research, HKSAR 2015, Faculty Award for outstanding performance in knowledge transfer (benefiting the education sector) 2021, President’s Award for outstanding performance in knowledge transfer (benefiting the education sector) 2022

Prof. Chan Shui Duen, Research Professor(CBS)

Knowledge is an important means to make change to life. Education enables more people to have access to knowledge, and hopefully more lives can be improved for achieving a better world. I see this as the most important mission of an educator.

General Research Fund 2022/2023, IBM Best Short Paper Award at the AAAI Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Health 2021, Baidu Best Paper Award at the Asian Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (AACL-IJCNLP) 2020

Dr Emmanuele Chersoni, Assistant Professor(CBS)

As one of my favorite university professors taught me, a good researcher must first and foremost be a dedicated teacher. You can say that you really know something only if you can explain it in simple words to someone with zero knowledge about it.

Nominated for the University’s President’s Award for Excellent Performance 2018 , Recipient of Faulty of Humanities Award for Outstanding Performance 2017, Recipient of Dean’s Award for Research Excellence 2016

Dr William Feng, Associate Professor(ENGL)

We teach language not only for more effective communication, but also for making better sense of the world. Studying language and communication enables us to appreciate the multiplicity and complexity of human communication, of our society and of different cultures. As educators in the humanities, we can help students enhance such understanding through critical thinking and theoretically informed analysis.

Led ELC, PolyU MOOCs 2014-16, Won Faculty Team Award for Outstanding Performance / Achievement 2015-16 (Teaching), Runs ELC’s VR Space, Advocates Pedagogical Innovation

Mr Adam Forrester, Assistant Dean(FH)& Senior Teaching Fellow(ELC)

Students need to collaborate, communicate, think critically and be creative to excel at university. This is true whether you are studying online or face-to-face. Your GPA is important, but don’t forget to make the most of your time at university. And, always question what you are asked to do.

Faculty Award for Excellent Performance in Research and Scholarly Activities 2017/18

Dr Victor Ho, Assocaite Professor(ENGL)

Teaching and learning are just two sides of the same coin ...
I guide my students and follow them;
I talk to my students and listen to them;
I teach my students and learn from them;
I inspire my students and look up to them;
I empower my students and shine with them.

Recipient of Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence 2018, Nominated for President Award for Teaching Excellence 2018

Dr Linda Lin, Senior Teaching Fellow(ELC)

My inspiration for teaching comes from Socrates: “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

To achieve this goal, I strive to provide as many opportunities as possible in class for students to participate actively, to think critically and to apply what they have learnt in new learning contexts.

Nominee for the University’s President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2019/2020, Faculty of Humanities Award for Outstanding Performance and Achievement in Teaching 2018/2019, Fellow, Higher Education Academy UK 2016

Dr Renia Lopez, Associate Professor(ENGL)

It is rewarding when students tell me they have enjoyed a course. But more rewarding is when I meet former students who tell me that I motivated them to aim high and help make a better world.
My goal is to inspire my students to realise their full potential and true value in life, to search beyond their boundaries, to question and to never give up!

RGC Research Fellowship (RFS) 2021/22, Faculty Award for Outstanding Performance and Achievement in Research and Scholarly Activities 2021

Prof. Peng Gang, Professor(CBS)

“Research lies at the heart of any university that takes its mission seriously, and broadening frontiers certainly enhances the quality of research. Furthermore, research and teaching are really two sides of the same intellectual coin — the yin and yang of knowledge. An inspired teacher is one who has directly investigated what he teaches, and a successful researcher is one who is eager to tell others what he has discovered.”

Faculty Award for Outstanding Performance in Teaching 2016/17, Nominated for UGC Teaching Award 2018, Nominated for President’s Award for Teaching Excellence 2017/18

Prof. Dennis Tay, Professor(ENGL)

To me, teaching is about reciprocity, relevance, and value-addedness. Reciprocity is the belief that teachers and students have much to learn from one another. No one observes my weaknesses more astutely than my students. Relevance means keeping abreast of cutting-edge developments to ensure students learn the most updated, holistic, and applicable knowledge. Value-addedness implies taking small but meaningful steps beyond defined classroom roles and methods. Even small things, if done consistently and done well, can mean a lot.

Faculty of Humanities Award for Teaching Excellence (Individual) 2021, Nominated for the PolyU President’s Award 2022

Dr Margo Turnbull, Research Assistant Professor(ENGL)

Education is key to the development and improvement of society. Being involved in education as a teacher is a both a responsibility and a privilege. Striving to be an excellent teacher involves maintaining high levels of specialist knowledge as well as the ongoing development of skills that can engage and challenge students in their learning. I enjoy the challenges of teaching and appreciate the opportunity to learn from the students who are in my classes.

Recipient of Faculty Award for Outstanding Performance in Research 2020, Recipient of Dean’s Award for Research Excellence 2019, Recipient of the Life Achievement Award from the International Association for Language and Social Psychology 2016

Prof. Bernadette Maria Watson, Professor(ENGL)

I am privileged to be at Hong Kong PolyU. Through teaching and research, I can help influence the way students deal with important matters. I can also reach out to the community: share my research and provide workshops that can make a difference. I deliver workshops to hospital staff on communication using research-informed teaching. Good communication works starts with awareness, and my teaching and knowledge transfer activities focus on making people more aware about how to be better communicators. In healthcare this is critical to staff and patients.

The President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Knowledge Transfer 2021, The President's Awards for Excellent Performance/ Achievement 2009/2010, Outstanding Professional Services and Innovation Awards 2009 (PolyU/PTeC)

Prof. Zhu Xinhua, Professor(CBS)

Being a teacher educator in Chinese language allows me to transfer the new knowledge created from my scholarship and consultancy service in Hong Kong, Singapore and the region. My work over the years has contributed to paradigm shifts in examination and teaching, from “normed-referenced tests” to “criteria-referenced tests”, from “teaching to the examination” to “teaching to develop capacities”, and from “learning knowledge” to “developing ability”. All these work are driven by my aspiration in inspiring every teacher and every student to embrace learning and realize their highest potential.

Faculty Award for Outstanding Performance and Achievement in Teaching 2019/20, Nominated for President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2019/20

Anna Ho, Man Chan, Richard Charles, Christopher Shepard, Denise Cheung, Eric Tindall, James Evans, Kira Rimrott(ELC)

The core business of all educational institutions is learning. Through education, we hope our students learn the knowledge, not of facts, but of values. Our team is grateful to have had the opportunity to realise this teaching philosophy through Service-Learning. Similar to our students, our team has gained much in return through serving. Our world vision, our sense of social responsibility, and our understanding of our role as educators have all been strengthened. We thank PolyU, and especially our students, for these opportunities.