Faculty of Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Prof. Rocky S. Tuan assumed office as the eighth Vice-Chancellor and President of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on 1 January 2018. Born and raised in Hong Kong, he pursued further studies in the United States and received his PhD in Life Sciences in 1977 from the Rockefeller University in New York. He is concurrently Lee Quo Wei and Lee Yick Hoi Lun Prof. of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at CUHK.

Prior to joining CUHK in 2016 as a Distinguished Visiting Prof. and the Founding Director of the Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, Prof. Tuan was Distinguished Prof. of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) School of Medicine, where he served from 2009 as the Founding Director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering, and as Arthur J. Rooney, Sr. Chair Prof. of Sports Medicine and Executive Vice-Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, with a joint appointment as Prof. in the Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. In 2012, Prof. Tuan was appointed by Pitt as Associate Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Founding Director of the Center for Military Medicine Research.

Prof. Tuan began his academic career in 1980 in the Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In 1988, Prof. Tuan joined Thomas Jefferson University (Jefferson), Philadelphia, to be the Director of Orthopaedic Research and Prof. and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery with a joint Prof.ial appointment in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. From 1992 to 1995, Prof. Tuan was the Academic Director of the MD/PhD programme at Jefferson, and in 1997, he established at Jefferson the first Cell and Tissue Engineering PhD programme in the U.S.A., with the mission of training the next generation of “cross-cultural” biomedical scientists committed to regenerative medicine and the development of functional tissue substitutes. In 2001, Prof. Tuan was recruited by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Arthritis, and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), as Chief of the newly created Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch.

Prof. Tuan is an internationally renowned biomedical scientist specializing in musculoskeletal biology and tissue regeneration, whose work covers both basic science and engineering, as well as translational and clinical applications. His research accomplishments are in the areas of cell and developmental biology, stem cells, biomaterials, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, 3D printing, and tissue chip technologies. He directs a multidisciplinary research programme, focusing on the study of biological activities that are important for the development, growth, function, and health of musculoskeletal tissues, and the translation of this knowledge to develop technologies that will regenerate and/or restore functions to diseased and damaged tissues, particularly those related to trauma, injuries, and aging. Prof. Tuan’s significant contributions have been recognized by the Coventry Award of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in 1996, the Hap Paul Award of the International Society of Technologies in Arthroplasty in 1997, the Marshall Urist Award for Excellence in Tissue Regeneration Research of the Orthopaedic Research Society in 2004, the Carnegie Science Award in Life Sciences in 2016, the Clemson Award of the Society for Biomaterials in 2016, and the Neviaser Award in Basic Science of The Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery (JSES) and the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) in 2020. In 2017, 2018 and 2019, Prof. Tuan was elected to the fellowships of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the Chinese Association of Inventions (CAI) and the American Association for Anatomy (AAA) respectively. In 2021, Prof. Tuan was also elected to be the fellowships of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) and the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS), for his accomplishments in innovation and translational research that bring significant impact on society.

Prof. Tuan has authored over 550 research publications and is a Founding Editor of the developmental biology journal Birth Defects Research, and the leading stem cell journal Stem Cell Research and Therapy. Prof. Tuan is well acquainted with academic research in Hong Kong, having previously served as a member, then Chairman, of the Biology and Medicine Panel of the Research Grants Council from 2010 to 2016.

Prof. Kong is the fifth President of the Singapore Management University (estb 2020), and the first Singaporean to lead the university.  She is also the first Singaporean woman to head a university in Singapore.  She was previously Provost of SMU – the first woman university Provost in Singapore. She had also held the posts of Vice Provost and Vice President at the National University of Singapore (in various portfolios). 

Prof. Kong is internationally known for her research on urban transformations, and social and cultural change in Asia.  She has written extensively about communal relations, particularly, the intersection of religion and secularity in cities, creative industries/cities, urban heritage conservation, and smart cities.   She is an award-winning researcher and teacher locally and internationally.  In a global study by Stanford University (2020), Prof Kong was identified as among the world’s top 1% of scientists in her discipline.  She is frequently featured as a keynote speaker or a moderator at conferences. She has co/authored or co/edited over 20 books, published over 100 refereed journal articles, and contributed over 60 book chapters.

Apart from her research accomplishments, Prof Kong has led transformational change at SMU.  As Provost and then President, Prof Kong has led the university through significant growth, in undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education programme enrolment, in research income, industry and international engagement, and in serving as a hub for entrepreneurial activity.

As Provost, she drove projects that enhanced the quality of SMU’s students and faculty, and its educational offerings and research. Among her numerous initiatives were a major revamp of the university’s undergraduate core curriculum, and a strengthening of selection processes in undergraduate admissions. Under her leadership, new interdisciplinary programmes were introduced, and the SMU Academy was established to  offer skills upgrading programmes for working adults.

Since becoming SMU president in January 2019, Prof Kong has led the university through a strategic review, leading to a focus on three areas: digital transformation, sustainable living, and growth in Asia. Educational, research and engagement initiatives are well underway in these areas. Under her watch, the university has stepped up on engagement with industry and university partners, locally and internationally.  SMU’s first overseas centre was launched in Jakarta in 2022 to deepen SMU’s engagements with the region.

Prof. Kong was conferred the Singapore Public Service Star (BBM) in 2020 and Singapore Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2006.  Prof. Kong has been recognised on Forbes Asia’s Power Businesswomen list 2020, Forbes inaugural 50 over 50 (Asia 2022) and Tatler’s Asia’s Most Influential 2022.  She was inducted into the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame in 2022.

Mr. Ong Siew Gay was appointed Consul General of the Consulate-General of the Republic of Singapore in Hong Kong in June 2021. Prior to his current appointment, he was Chief of Protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore from 2016 to 2021.

Mr. Ong had served in the Foreign Service in various capacities in the Policy, Planning and Analysis Directorate, International Organizations Directorate, and Protocol Directorate. His more recent appointments include Consul General of the Consulate-General of the Republic of Singapore in Shanghai from 2012 to 2016 and Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the Republic of Singapore in Washington D.C. from 2009 to 2011.

Mr. Ong received his BSSc (Honours) in Economics from the National University of Singapore under a Public Service Commission scholarship and MA in Regional Studies (East Asian Studies) from Columbia University under a Ministry of Foreign Affairs scholarship.

David Chan is Lee Kong Chian Professor of Psychology and Director of the Behavioural Sciences Initiative at the Singapore Management University (SMU). He is also Adjunct Principal Scientist and Scientific Advisor at the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). His works in diverse areas of social-behavioural sciences published in top psychology, management and methods journals have been cited extensively in various disciplines.

A 2020 study by Stanford University on researcher impact among all scientists across all disciplines named him in the top one percent worldwide. He is Elected Fellow of six international psychological associations and has received numerous international achievement awards in psychology. Together with Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Daniel Kahneman, he served on an international committee who authored a report on national well-being across countries which was subsequently incorporated by the United Nations in its Human Development Report.

He has served on numerous national councils, committees and boards, and he is currently a member of the Social Science Research Council, NParks Board of Directors and Chairman of the Selection Panel for the A*STAR Social Sciences Innovation Seed Fund. He is an invited columnist for The Straits Times and consultant to Channel NewsAsia on several award-winning documentary series. Prior to entering academia, he was a police officer in the Singapore Police Force.

Jeroen van Ameijde is an Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he is also the Director of the MSc in Urban Design programme. His research interests focus on the intersection between urban studies and urban design, and how the use of data-driven methods can help interpret urban processes and inform human-centric and participatory urban design and planning.

Jeong-han Kang received B.A. in mathematics from Seoul National University and Ph.D. in sociology from University of Chicago, and currently is Professor of Sociology at Yonsei University, Seoul. His recent research interests include digital transformation and narrative-driven data science and he is leading YODA (Yonsei Online Data Analysis) Lab in the department (https://sites.google.com/view/yoda-lab). His studies have been published in Journal of Informetrics, Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Sociological Methods and Research, and Administrative Science Quarterly.

David Hanson develops robots that are widely regarded as the world’s most human-like in appearance, in a lifelong quest to create true living, caring machines. To accomplish these goals, Hanson integrates figurative arts with cognitive science and robotics engineering, inventions novel skin materials, facial expression mechanisms, and collaborative developments in AI, within humanoid artworks like Sophia the robot, which can engage people in naturalistic face-to-face conversations and currently serve in AI research, education, therapy, and other uses.

Hanson worked as a Walt Disney Imagineer, both a sculptor and a technical consultant in robotics, and later founded Hanson Robotics. As a researcher, Hanson published dozens of papers in materials science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and robotics journals — including SPIE, IEEE, the International Journal of Cognitive Science, IROS, AAAI, AI magazine and more. He wrote two books including “Humanizing Robots” and received several patents. Hanson was featured in the New York Times, Popular Science, Scientific American, WIRED, BBC and CNN. He also received earned awards from NASA, NSF, Tech Titans’ Innovator of the Year, RISD, Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, and the co-received the 2005 AAAI first place prize for open interaction of an AI system. Hanson holds a Ph.D. in Interactive Arts and Technology from the University of Texas at Dallas, and a BFA in film Animation video from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Prof. Lisa C. Wan is an Associate Professor of School of Hotel and Tourism Management and Department of Marketing at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School. She is also a Co-Director of the Centre for Hospitality and Real Estate Research. Prof. Wan has an impressive track record of high-quality teaching over the years. She was the recipient of the University Education Award 2021(General Faculty Members Category) and Vice-Chancellor’s Exemplary Teaching Award 2017 presented by CUHK, the Faculty Teaching Excellence Award 2017 and the Faculty Teaching Merit Award 2012-2017, 2018-22 presented by CUHK Business School.

Prof. Wan’s research interests include consumer/tourist reactions to service robots and technologies, cross-cultural consumer behaviour, consumer/tourist green consumption, and space tourism. Her works has appeared in the top-tier marketing, hospitality, and tourism journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research etc.

Prof. Wan’s expertise is also attracted to the media, where she was interviewed by radio programmes, local television broadcasting and newspaper. Her views and insights could then be accessible to the public and to transfer knowledge to a broad audience. One of her recent publications about consumer reactions to service robots in Covid19 has attracted 368 local and international media pickups. The article was disseminated to 15,864 media around the world and 1,253 journalists read the article.

Mr. William Hui obtained his Bachelor Degree in Computer Science from the University of London and Master Degree in Parent Education from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has rich experience in the industry and served as leaders in Microsoft HK, Reuters China, IBM Asia, Apple Europe. Currently, he is the Head of IT Innovation, Research and Development at Manulife International Ltd..

Mr. Hui is interested in AI, Robotics, audio electronics and acoustic engineering, and life time research on Jewish education practices.

Dr. Zhen Luo, CEO of ParityBit Technologies, has been leading the company in developing privacy-enhancing technologies, data governance and AI technologies and applying these technologies to unlock the value of the data in areas like healthcare, finance, scientific research and other industries.

Dr. Luo has over 20 years of software industry experience in general and has had extensive experience in developing large scale web systems, big data platforms and machine learning applications. Prior to ParityBit, he had held R&D management positions with Synopsys, Magma Design Automation and Allyes Group, achieved several major technological breakthroughs while leading teams across United States, India, and China.

Dr. Luo received his Bachelor’s degree from Peking University and Ph.D. in computer engineering from Princeton University.

After obtaining his Ph.D. from Columbia University (New York), Prof. Chiu has performed distinctive roles both in the academia and in executive functions in psychology. Currently, he is the Dean of Social Science, Choh-Ming Li Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He contributes significantly in applying psychological science to enhance well-ness and productivity of people worldwide. He was the founder of the National Institute of Asian Consumer Insight and contributed to the promotion of systematic, innovative and science-informed positive education in Hong Kong. He was prolific in his research and contributed significantly in international publications in social psychology of culture, human motivation and dynamics in high-ranked well-recognised international journals.

Prof. Feida Zhu is currently a tenured Associate Professor and Associate Dean at the School of Computing and Information Systems, Singapore Management University. AI and collaborative intelligence, blockchain, data asset and AI governance, with emphasis on their application to business, financial and consumer innovation. He was the founding director of the Pinnacle Lab for Analytics with China Ping An Insurance Group which focuses on social media and mobile data mining and analysis for finance industry with millions of dollars of support. The lab has nurtured a series of innovation and applications in the area of banking and insurance from underlying research breakthroughs in data mining and machine learning. Over the years, the outstanding work from the lab have helped Fortune-500 and other leading industrial giants in a number of industries with customized application platforms powered by big data engine.

He is also the founding director of DBS-SMU Life Analytics Lab. Prof. Zhu is also the Founder and Chief Scientist of SYMPHONY, a Web3 blockchain-based protocol to empower a data-driven economy by democratized and collaborative data Intelligence with privacy by design. Prof. Zhu has over 100 peer-reviewed research publications at top international venues, including ICDE, VLDB, SIGMOD, KDD, WWW, JMLR, TODS, TKDE, etc. His work on large-scale frequent pattern mining has won the Best Student Paper Awards at 2007 IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE’07) and 2007 Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD’07). He also received the Best Paper Award at the 21th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (DASFAA’16) and the Best Demo Paper Award at The 17th International Conference on Web-Age Information Management (WAIM’16). He won the Early Career Award of PAKDD’19 and is the General Co-Chair of IEEE ICDM’18 and ACM KDD’21. Prof. Zhu obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2009, supervised by Prof. Jiawei Han.