SENG News, Issue 9

Abstract

 SENG NEWS May 2015 – Issue 9 Global Engagement SENG Faculty Look to the Future at World Economic Forum School of Engineering faculty members and their innovative research drew global attention at the prestigious World Economic Forum annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, in January. Led by HKUST President Prof Tony Chan, four of the School’s academics hosted an IdeasLab, a unique Forum format in which the world’s leading minds present ideas to change lives for the better. Read More Faculty Achievements Two SENG Faculty Appointed to Named Professorships Two of the School of Engineering’s leading academics, namely Prof Qiang Yang and Prof Xin Zhang, have recently been awarded the prestigious named professorships in HKUST’s Named Professorship Program, which honors eminent faculty and recognize donor supporters of the University. Read More HKUST Develops First Visual Analytic System on E-learning Behavior VisMOOC Won HKICT Innovation Award HKUST has developed the first visual analytic system for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), which provides interactive, in-depth, and user-friendly analysis of e-learning behavior, promising improvement in teaching quality and more demand-focus MOOC programs that could further boost the development of online education. Read More Women in Engineering Meet Prof Pascale Fung Founded the Women Faculty Association at HKUST in 2011, Prof Pascale Fung shared her strong passion in Engineering. Read More Announcement Appointment of Director of Industry Engagement and Internship The School of Engineering is pleased to announce the appointment of Prof Michael Sung as Director of Industry Engagement and Internship (IEI). Prof Sung is succeeding Prof Patrick Yue. Read More Upcoming Event SENG Alumni Happy Hour Date: 5 Jun 2015 (Fri) Time: 5:30pm – 7:30pm Venue: Amaroni’s Little Italy, Shop 32, LG1, Festival Walk, 80 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong

Registration: FREE for SENG alumni! Please register through the online form here on or before 29 May 2015 (Fri).

Industry Collaboration SENG Project Becomes First in Hong Kong and Mainland China Accepted onto the Google Solve For X Platform The winning entry of the Google Solve For X Competition at HKUST has become Hong Kong and Mainland China’s first project being accepted by Google on its Solve For X platform. An awards presentation ceremony of the competition was held on 18 March by the School of Engineering to recognize the outstanding work of the faculty and student awardees. Read More Student Achievements HKUST ROV Team Bags Championship in 10th Hong Kong/Asia Regional IET/MATE Underwater Robot Challenge The HKUST Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) team has once again secured the Championship in the Explorer Class of the 10th Hong Kong/Asia Regional IET/MATE Underwater Robot Challenge and will represent Hong Kong in the 2015 MATE International ROV Competition in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Read More Community Engagement SIGHT and SENG Hold Workshop for High School Students On 25 April, Student Innovation for Global Health Technology (SIGHT) and the School of Engineering co-organized a workshop for local high school students to share the spirit of community service on global health with sustainable technology, and invited them to be the first users of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) system developed by SIGHT student team. Read More HKUST Hosts Underwater Robot Competition for Junior Students and Students with Special Education Needs In order to provide primary and secondary school students a chance to participate in the making of robots, HKUST invited students from Primary 4 to Form 3, as well as those with special education needs (SEN), to join an underwater robot competition at HKUST. A team of female students and a team with SEN members won the champion and the first runner-up. Read More Alumni Connections Joyful Moments on Alumni Family Fun Day The School of Engineering Alumni Family Fun Day brought 430+ alumni and families on campus for a joyful Sunday on 12 April 2015. Read More

Campus News Opening of Graduate Commons to Promote Collaborative and Multidisciplinary Learning HKUST celebrated the grand opening of the Graduate Commons on 11 Feb, signifying a new phase of campus facility development for postgraduate students across all schools to engage in ideas exchange and collaborative learning. Read More First Aero Day Held With Great Success Jointly organized by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the HKUST Student Branch of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the first Aero Day was held on campus on 24 Feb with great success. Read More HKUST Hosts Hong Kong’s First University Student-Led Hackathon The first university student-led Hackathon in Hong Kong was successfully held on 28-29 March at HKUST, drawing over 220 students and alumni in 47 teams from various local universities. Entitled Hackathon@HKUST, the activity was co-organized by a group of HKUST students and Tencent Foundation. It was a 24-hour coding competition in which participants collaborate intensively on a software or hardware project, centering on one of the three themes of this year, namely charity, entrepreneurship, and women consumers. Read More PhD Research Excellence Recognized in SENG Awards Three recent graduates from different departments have been named the recipients of the School of Engineering PhD Research Excellence Awards 2014-15. The awardees are Dr Feng Xuan from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Dr Yanjiao Chen from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Dr Shu Yang from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering. All of them are 2014 graduates. Read More 2015 SENG Three Minute Thesis Competition Following the success of the 2014 SENG RPg Communication Competition, the Center for Engineering Education Innovation (E2I) of the School of Engineering held the 2015 SENG Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition on 15 April 2015. Read More

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09 / 02 / 2015 SENG Faculty Look to the Future at World Economic Forum (From Left) Prof Pedro Sander, Prof Pascale Fung, Prof Tony F Chan, Prof Khaled Ben Letaief and Prof Qiang Yang. [Download Photo]

School of Engineering (SENG) faculty members and their innovative research drew global attention at the prestigious World Economic Forum annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, in January.

Led by HKUST President Prof Tony Chan, four of the School’s academics hosted an IdeasLab, a unique Forum format in which the world’s leading minds present ideas to change lives for the better. HKUST was the only university from Asia to be part of the IdeasLab series at this year’s conference. The six other universities were Oxford, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon.

At the HKUST IdeasLab, the SENG academics shared their insights on the integration of the physical and cyber worlds and the impact on society. Dean of Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief discussed the game-changing effect of 5G technology and Head of Computer Science and Engineering and New Bright Professor of Engineering Prof Qiang Yang looked at the new environment being ushered in by big data and artificial intelligence. Human-machine communications expert Prof Pascale Fung, Electronic and Computer Engineering, spoke on the development of empathetic robots and Prof Pedro Sander, Computer Science and Engineering, examined advances in capturing and rendering images to provide a more detailed visual record of the world.

Prof Fung also co-hosted a lively dinner discussion on “Evolution of Human Knowledge in the 21st Century”, where politicians, business leaders, artists and writers debated how machines could be taught language and arts appreciation.

Among the 2,500 global leaders attending the World Economic Forum were China’s Premier Li Keqiang and US Secretary of State John Kerry, Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

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11 / 05 / 2015 Two SENG Faculty Appointed to Named Professorships

Two of the School of Engineering’s leading academics have recently been awarded the prestigious named professorships in HKUST’s Named Professorship Program, which honors eminent faculty and recognize donor supporters of the University. A total of 4 professorships were conferred at the second inauguration ceremony of named professorships held in April.

“I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to the donors and for their generosity in creating the named professorships,” President Prof Tony F Chan said. “The named professorship appointments ensure the University will maintain excellence in education and research by giving due recognition to our exceptional faculty. HKUST will continue its relentless pursuit for innovation in education and research, in addition to garnering support from society and recruiting talents for the good of the University and the community.”

“The professorship holders all excel in a diverse range of disciplines encompassing science, engineering, business, and others,” President Prof Tony F Chan added. “Their education and research accomplishments have constantly been placed at the forefront of international scholarship, helping the University develop into a world-class research university. The honorees’ passion for teaching and research also sets an inspiring example for students’ learning and personal development.”

The professorships were made possible by donations given to HKUST from four long-standing contributors to higher education. The two engineering-related ones are: Wong Check She Charitable Foundation and The Swire Group Charitable Trust. Ms Laura Lau, Head of Philanthropy of The Swire Group Charitable Trust, remarked that, “we have established the Swire Professorship in Aerospace Engineering to help HKUST build its first ever degree course in aerospace engineering into a world-class program that will strengthen the competitiveness of Hong Kong’s aviation sector and increase career options and opportunities for Hong Kong students.”

The appointed School of Engineering professors are: Prof Qiang Yang [Download Photo]

Prof Qiang Yang, New Bright Professor of Engineering The Head and Chair Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Prof Yang began his academic career specializing in astrophysics, but switched to computer science, at a very exciting time in the field. He has BSc and MSc in Astrophysics from Peking University and University of Maryland, respectively, and MSc and PhD in Computer Science, both from Maryland, and joined HKUST in 2001, after professorships at University of Waterloo and Simon Fraser University in Canada. Prof Yang’s focus is on pushing frontiers in the areas of big data, data mining and artificial intelligence, particularly when it comes to making a difference to everyday life. In 2012, Prof Yang set up the Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab, which conducts state-of-the-art research in data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence by exploring theories and building intelligent systems. His other area involves working with smart cities and the healthcare industry to build intelligent systems to provide better services, such as emergency alert systems for the elderly. Prof Xin Zhang [Download Photo]

Prof Xin Zhang, Swire Professor of Aerospace Engineering The Chair Professor of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Prof Zhang is a graduate of the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, where he gained a BEng in aerospace engineering, then won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he completed his PhD in fluid mechanics. The expertise of Prof Zhang lies in two research areas: aircraft aerodynamics and aeroacoustics, and racing car aerodynamics and performance. His role at HKUST is to develop the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as a center of excellence for aerospace engineering. The reduction of aircraft noise will be one of the key aspects of research. HKUST is supporting research in sustainable aviation, aerodynamics, and aeroacoustics with the establishment of a modern aeroacoustics research tunnel, a unique “wind tunnel” for aerodynamics and noise technology, set to open in September 2016. This unique world-class facility will play a major role in developing new noise reduction methods and technology.

In addition, Prof Jitendra V Singh, Dean of the School of Business and Management and Chair Professor of Management, was named Michael Jebsen Professor of Business with donation from Jebsen Educational Foundation. Prof Xiuli Chao, Visiting Professor from the University of Michigan, was named Fung Visiting Professor of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management with donation from Li & Fung.

With two newly appointed named professors, there are currently six named professors at School of Engineering. The four existing named professors are Prof Hoi-Sing Kwok, Dr William M W Mong Professor of Nanotechnology, from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering; Prof Chung-Yee Lee, Cheong Ying Chan Professor of Engineering, from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management; Prof Tongyi Zhang, Fang Professor of Engineering, from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and Prof Matthew McKay, Hari Harilela Associate Professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering, from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering. These professorships were created with generous donation from Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund, Stephen Kam Chuen Cheong Education Fund, Fang Brothers Group, and Dr Hari and Mrs Padma Harilela respectively.

Related Link(s) HKUST press release

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繁體 简体 15 / 04 / 2015 HKUST Develops First Visual Analytic System on E-learning Behavior VisMOOC Won HKICT Innovation Award Prof Huamin Qu (Third Left) and his team receive Innovation (Innovative Technology) Silver Award at The Hong Kong ICT Awards. [Download Photo]

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed the first visual analytic system for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), which provides interactive, in-depth, and user-friendly analysis of e-learning behavior, promising improvement in teaching quality and more demand-focus MOOC programs that could further boost the development of online education.

The system Visual Analysis of MOOC (VisMOOC), developed by a team led by Prof Huamin Qu from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has received the Best Innovation (Innovative Technology) Silver Award at The Hong Kong ICT Awards this year.

“There have been some studies to analyze the behavior of online learners, but instructors have found it difficult to utilize those analysis on teaching as many crucial data were not available until recently,” said Prof Qu. “Now with more data supply by MOOC platforms, especially those on video clickstream, we are able to create an intuitive and comprehensive analytical system, boosted by novel visualization techniques such as seek diagram, that allows instructors to make sense of the vast amount of e-learning data for the first time.”

VisMOOC matches clickstream data with statistics on forum chat and grading so users can identify the gender, origins, age group, academic performance and other traits of an individual viewer or a group of viewers when they skip or replay a certain clip of the video. That facilitates instructors’ understanding of their students’ interest and problems, so they could improve the course content for future offerings. “In the future, we can even extend the service to students by offering them personalized e-learning experience,” Prof Qu said.

The system is well-received by course instructors, education analysts and key MOOC platforms since its launch in May 2014. Major MOOC platforms Coursera and edX both said they planned to integrate the system into their platforms.

As the first visual-based analytical system for MOOC videos, Prof Qu said such technology has huge potential as its market lies not only with the online education sector, but it can also be a useful tool for entertainment companies and online advertisers.

HKUST is a pioneer leader in MOOC, ever since the University became one of the first in Asia to join Coursera in 2012 and edX in 2013, it has strived to promote and incorporate this innovative pedagogy into traditional teaching, HKUST is the first local institution to introduce credit-bearing MOOC courses which merges online learning with face-to-face classes.

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16 / 04 / 2015 Women in Engineering: meet Prof Pascale Fung Professor, Electronic and Computer Engineering Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Chairperson and Co-founder, iVo Technologies Prof Pascale Fung

Founded the Women Faculty Association at HKUST in 2011, Prof Pascale Fung shared her strong passion in Engineering.

1) Why did you choose to go into engineering and your particular areas of focus?

I was born in Shanghai to professional artist parents. They expected me to follow in their footsteps. However, I also loved reading including science fictions. When I was seven, I read a science fiction book that described a future world, where robots talk to you and you can shop at home via computers. I was fascinated and wanted to see such a world developed as quickly as possible. I didn’t like playing with dolls when I was little but loved solving problems and making things work.

After we moved to Hong Kong, I went to an all girls secondary school and at one point established the Electronics Club at school (though I became the lone member at the end, but had the entire electronic lab to myself!). I watched a lot of sci-fi movies on TV and was captivated by the universal translator in Star Trek, where anyone can speak any language into it and it will be translated into any other language. At this stage, I also read in Ming Pao newspaper about a place called Bell Labs in the US, where scientists had invented cool technologies such as the transistor and the Unix operating system. I thought I would like to go there.

So I went to university in the US and chose to major in electrical engineering. In college I realized that I preferred software to hardware. For my final year project, I worked on computer vision, an area in artificial intelligence. I also finished an undergraduate humanities thesis on French movies. All of which led me to study in an engineering school in Paris later on. There I had my first encounter with speech recognition in a lab. I wrote an overview report of the research area after reading all the papers in the previous five years (in the 80s very few people were working in that area and there were no commercial applications.)

2) How did you view your career path when you set out? Were you inspired by any person or event?

I worked on speech recognition systems for the French language, and on Japanese when I lived in Japan. I learned to speak French, Japanese and also taught machines to recognize these languages. Afterward, I moved back to the US and worked for a US-DARPA contractor company (the same company that built the first part of ARPANET, the beginning of our Internet today). We built the world’s first real-time continuous English speech recognition system. Even though it was not a commercial product but for the first time I saw a computer that can recognize what we say come alive. My childhood dream came true!

When I was doing my PhD, my thesis advisor told me about machine translation. There was a group at Bell Labs and a group at IBM research labs pioneering a way to build machine translation by enabling the system to learn from a huge amount of human translation samples. I did part of my thesis work at Bell Labs. So, yes, I finally got to build the gadget I saw in Star Trek when I was little.

Computers that can talk to you and allow you to shop from home are part of real life now. Even Google Translate is being used daily in hundreds of languages. However, we still have a long way to go before we have machines that can understand your intent, your emotion and the context perfectly. We still have a long way to go before machines that can translate any language in any style at the level of human translators. Every year we make progress in research and bring the future a little closer.

I love my job and feel very lucky that I am being paid to realize my childhood dreams. Only engineers can get so much resource to build 'toys' on a big scale.

I also learned to speak Spanish and Italian to some extent, and am studying Hindi. So one major research interest for me is to build machines that are themselves multilingual.

3) Why do you enjoy working in SENG? What brought you to HKUST?

When I went to the US to study my ambition was to work at Bell Labs. However, in 1994, I visited the newly founded HKUST and was fascinated by the vision of a “startup” university that was going to break the mold. During my year of visit I liked the colleagues here, who were all adventurous and ambitious. There was so much energy and it felt anything was possible. So, when I got my PhD, I decided that it would be more fun to join HKUST than stay at Bell Labs. At HKUST in 1998, we built the world’s first multilingual voice browser in eight languages. I also had the opportunity to start the Human Language Technology Center with other faculty members.

4) What do you see as your most satisfying achievement to date and what are your overall goals?

Our center was the first in Greater China to research speech recognition, machine translation and information retrieval. As a co-founder of this center, I helped recruit other faculty members and started new research directions. The center also founded a number of startup companies that launched the world’s first Chinese natural language search engine, and the world’s first online translation engine, among others.

Many of senior and excellent researchers in speech and language research today came through our center, including some who went to lead technical teams in major companies, such as Baidu and Microsoft.

My overall goals are to improve people’s lives with our technology. To make such an impact, research is not enough. It is also necessary to develop products and market them.

5) Why did you found the Women Faculty Association at HKUST?

For 20+ years I worked with mostly men but also some very cool women. My own thesis advisor was a prominent woman researcher. Tenure-track women professors all over the world seem to face some common challenges. After so many years at HKUST of teaching mostly male engineering students, and also seeing very few women faculty role models, it was time to make some changes. In addition, one of the core strengths of HKUST and of SENG is in its cultural diversity. We need to enhance and improve our diversity in terms of gender and cultural backgrounds.

6) Why should more women consider engineering as a career?

Why not?! There are plenty of women, given the opportunity, would be interested in engineering. Our society today discourages many talented women from choosing engineering as a career. This is unfair to them.

In addition, engineering is a good career for financial independence. It’s pretty secure – a good engineer can always find a job to do anywhere in the world. Engineering allows you to innovate, create and make a direct positive impact on the knowledge-based society of today and tomorrow.

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16 / 04 / 2015 Women in Engineering: meet Prof Pascale Fung Professor, Electronic and Computer Engineering Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Chairperson and Co-founder, iVo Technologies Prof Pascale Fung

Founded the Women Faculty Association at HKUST in 2011, Prof Pascale Fung shared her strong passion in Engineering.

1) Why did you choose to go into engineering and your particular areas of focus?

I was born in Shanghai to professional artist parents. They expected me to follow in their footsteps. However, I also loved reading including science fictions. When I was seven, I read a science fiction book that described a future world, where robots talk to you and you can shop at home via computers. I was fascinated and wanted to see such a world developed as quickly as possible. I didn’t like playing with dolls when I was little but loved solving problems and making things work.

After we moved to Hong Kong, I went to an all girls secondary school and at one point established the Electronics Club at school (though I became the lone member at the end, but had the entire electronic lab to myself!). I watched a lot of sci-fi movies on TV and was captivated by the universal translator in Star Trek, where anyone can speak any language into it and it will be translated into any other language. At this stage, I also read in Ming Pao newspaper about a place called Bell Labs in the US, where scientists had invented cool technologies such as the transistor and the Unix operating system. I thought I would like to go there.

So I went to university in the US and chose to major in electrical engineering. In college I realized that I preferred software to hardware. For my final year project, I worked on computer vision, an area in artificial intelligence. I also finished an undergraduate humanities thesis on French movies. All of which led me to study in an engineering school in Paris later on. There I had my first encounter with speech recognition in a lab. I wrote an overview report of the research area after reading all the papers in the previous five years (in the 80s very few people were working in that area and there were no commercial applications.)

2) How did you view your career path when you set out? Were you inspired by any person or event?

I worked on speech recognition systems for the French language, and on Japanese when I lived in Japan. I learned to speak French, Japanese and also taught machines to recognize these languages. Afterward, I moved back to the US and worked for a US-DARPA contractor company (the same company that built the first part of ARPANET, the beginning of our Internet today). We built the world’s first real-time continuous English speech recognition system. Even though it was not a commercial product but for the first time I saw a computer that can recognize what we say come alive. My childhood dream came true!

When I was doing my PhD, my thesis advisor told me about machine translation. There was a group at Bell Labs and a group at IBM research labs pioneering a way to build machine translation by enabling the system to learn from a huge amount of human translation samples. I did part of my thesis work at Bell Labs. So, yes, I finally got to build the gadget I saw in Star Trek when I was little.

Computers that can talk to you and allow you to shop from home are part of real life now. Even Google Translate is being used daily in hundreds of languages. However, we still have a long way to go before we have machines that can understand your intent, your emotion and the context perfectly. We still have a long way to go before machines that can translate any language in any style at the level of human translators. Every year we make progress in research and bring the future a little closer.

I love my job and feel very lucky that I am being paid to realize my childhood dreams. Only engineers can get so much resource to build 'toys' on a big scale.

I also learned to speak Spanish and Italian to some extent, and am studying Hindi. So one major research interest for me is to build machines that are themselves multilingual.

3) Why do you enjoy working in SENG? What brought you to HKUST?

When I went to the US to study my ambition was to work at Bell Labs. However, in 1994, I visited the newly founded HKUST and was fascinated by the vision of a “startup” university that was going to break the mold. During my year of visit I liked the colleagues here, who were all adventurous and ambitious. There was so much energy and it felt anything was possible. So, when I got my PhD, I decided that it would be more fun to join HKUST than stay at Bell Labs. At HKUST in 1998, we built the world’s first multilingual voice browser in eight languages. I also had the opportunity to start the Human Language Technology Center with other faculty members.

4) What do you see as your most satisfying achievement to date and what are your overall goals?

Our center was the first in Greater China to research speech recognition, machine translation and information retrieval. As a co-founder of this center, I helped recruit other faculty members and started new research directions. The center also founded a number of startup companies that launched the world’s first Chinese natural language search engine, and the world’s first online translation engine, among others.

Many of senior and excellent researchers in speech and language research today came through our center, including some who went to lead technical teams in major companies, such as Baidu and Microsoft.

My overall goals are to improve people’s lives with our technology. To make such an impact, research is not enough. It is also necessary to develop products and market them.

5) Why did you found the Women Faculty Association at HKUST?

For 20+ years I worked with mostly men but also some very cool women. My own thesis advisor was a prominent woman researcher. Tenure-track women professors all over the world seem to face some common challenges. After so many years at HKUST of teaching mostly male engineering students, and also seeing very few women faculty role models, it was time to make some changes. In addition, one of the core strengths of HKUST and of SENG is in its cultural diversity. We need to enhance and improve our diversity in terms of gender and cultural backgrounds.

6) Why should more women consider engineering as a career?

Why not?! There are plenty of women, given the opportunity, would be interested in engineering. Our society today discourages many talented women from choosing engineering as a career. This is unfair to them.

In addition, engineering is a good career for financial independence. It’s pretty secure – a good engineer can always find a job to do anywhere in the world. Engineering allows you to innovate, create and make a direct positive impact on the knowledge-based society of today and tomorrow.

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18 / 03 / 2015 SENG Project Becomes First in Hong Kong and Mainland China Accepted onto the Google Solve For X Platform Group Photo of the faculty and the awardees of Google Solve For X HKUST Competition [Download Photo]

The winning entry of the Google Solve For X Competition at HKUST has become Hong Kong and Mainland China’s first project being accepted by Google on its Solve For X platform. An awards presentation ceremony of the competition was held on 18 March by the School of Engineering (SENG) to recognize the outstanding work of the faculty and student awardees.

An open moonshot platform powered by Google, Solve For X is a place to hear about and discuss radical technology ideas for solving global problems. It encourages moonshots where radical solutions that sound like science fiction yet can practically be put into reality through technology breakthrough are put forward to assist with problems affecting millions of people.

Collaborated by Google and HKUST, the joint competition brought this exciting moonshot platform to Hong Kong for the first time and provided an ideal platform for HKUST students and faculty across disciplines and schools to engage in intellectual and research discussions. The competition aims to promote entrepreneurship, encourage wider academic and research exposure outside classrooms and labs, and better prepare students in their career and professional development. Participants were able to enjoy the privilege to introduce and discuss their radical technology ideas through the competition.

The competition was well-received by the whole university, with 14 projects submitted by 40 students, faculty and external parties. The “Winner” Award went to Prof Michael Sung, Senior Lecturer of Electronic & Computer Engineering and Director of the Center for Industry Engagement & Internship, and his team on their project “Mass-Volume Graphene Production Using Waste Carbon Emission Harvesting to Enable EV Battery Technologies”. The team was chosen for their original, innovative and influential research achievements for knowledge in battery technologies. In addition to winning in the HKUST competition, their project is the first from Hong Kong and Mainland China being accepted by Google onto its Solve For X platform. The team will have the opportunity to get international exposure with experts and scholars from all over the world through attending the Solve For X Annual Conference organized by Google. Such achievement of SENG faculty is set to further strengthen Google’s support to HKUST as its strategic regional partner through this competition and beyond.

Along with the winner award, four Honorable Mentions were selected. All of them were chosen under a rigorous review by the HKUST Solve For X Selection Panel, which comprised faculty and alumni from different schools. The selection was based on three criteria of equal weighting: (i) A huge problem that affects millions or even billions of people; (ii) A radical science-fiction-like innovative solution to that problem; & (iii) A technological or scientific breakthrough that enables that solution and indicates that it could really be brought to life. Only the proposals which fulfilled the three criteria were selected.

The winning team was awarded with a cash prize of HK$38,000, and HK$8,000 each to the teams of the Honorable Mention. No. Member (*Convener) Project name Award 1 Prof Michael Sung*(SENG), Yuan Gao (SENG), Fabian Gompf (SENG), Clarissa Tak Shan Ko (IPO), Li Ling (SENG), Sunny Lim (SSCI), Ji Ho Park (SENG), Tak Shing Yiu (IPO) Mass-Volume Graphene Production Using Waste Carbon Emission Harvesting to Enable EV Battery Technologies Winner 2 Shammi Akter Ferdousi*(SENG), Paolo Adriel Pugeda Aquino (SENG), Fransiscus Leo Chandra (SENG), Xinlu Liu (SENG), Ai Lin Loh (SENG), Gloria Portia (SENG), Prof King Lun Yeung (SENG) New Materials for Moisture Removal and Water Harvesting from Air Honorable Mention 3 Pik Shuen Karen Hung*(IPO), Prof Joseph Kwan (IPO), Siu Ming Kwan (SENG), Oi Wa Lee (SENG), Prof King Lun Yeung (SENG) Pulse Water: A taste of pulse water in your life Honorable Mention 4 Wai Leung Langston Suen*(SENG), Prof Ying Chau (SENG), Jan Engels (SSCI), Prof Kwok Ho Lam (external party), Mathew Mak (SENG), Prof Michael Sung (SENG) SonoSolution Honorable Mention 5 Alexandru George Tilita*(SENG), Stefan Nicolae (external party), Constantinos Spandagos (SENG) Create a Reactor/Plant which replaces Carbon Dioxide and outputs Oxygen molecules in the atmosphere Honorable Mention

Note: SENG = School of Engineering IPO = Interdisciplinary Programs Office SSCI = School of Science

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05 / 05 / 2015 HKUST ROV Team Bags Championship in 10th Hong Kong/Asia Regional IET/MATE Underwater Robot Challenge [Download Photo]

The HKUST ROV team which consists of 15 students (10 SENG, 2 SSCI, 1 SBM and 2 Dual Degree) has once again secured the Championship in the Explorer Class of the 10th Hong Kong/Asia Regional IET/MATE Underwater Robot Challenge held on 18-19 April 2015 at Tseung Kwan O Swimming Pool and will represent Hong Kong in the 2015 MATE International ROV Competition to be held from 25-27 June 2015 in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

The team is supervised by Prof Tim Woo and achieved its amazing outcome after having a design that focused on increasing the speed and compactness. In this regional competition, they topped the mission runs, bested different teams from Hong Kong, China, Indonesia and Malaysia and have once again earned the title of Hong Kong Champions in the Explorer Class. In addition, 5 teams including junior students and students with special education needs from HKUST Underwater Robot Competition were nominated in joining the Scout Class competition. They also got excellent results and swept top awards in the competition of Scout Class.

A sincere appreciation went to RS Components for sponsoring the high quality electronic components and professional equipment. RS Components has been sponsoring the HKUST Robotics Team for 5 consecutive years.

The International ROV Competition has been organized by the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) for the past thirteen years in association with the Marine Technology Society's ROV Committee. This year, the competition is themed “Science and Industry in the Arctic”. The qualifiers from various regional competitions will be able to take part in the international competition in in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada in June 2015.

The Asian regional competition was organized by The Institution of Engineering and Technology, Hong Kong (IET HK), the largest overseas branch of the UK's largest professional engineering institution and also the world's largest professional engineer awarding body, and was co-organized with HKUST. More than 40 staff and students from The Center for Global & Community Engagement (GCE) and different schools provided an excellent volunteering service in supporting the event organization. They also received high appreciation from the organizing committee.

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26 / 04 / 2015 SIGHT and SENG Hold Workshop for High School Students High school students enjoyed the workshop co-organized by SIGHT and SENG. [Download Photo]

On 25 April, Student Innovation for Global Health Technology (SIGHT) and the School of Engineering (SENG) co-organized a workshop for local high school students to share the spirit of community service on global health with sustainable technology, and invited them to be the first users of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) system developed by SIGHT student team.

The workshop started with a discussion on global health issues. The students came up with the definition of global health, and identified the global health problems that the world is currently facing: problems including the deficiency of sanitation, starvation and diseases were raised. Then the team further zoomed in the problems that One-2-One, the NGO partner of SIGHT which provides mobile clinical services to people in Cambodia, faces in their operation every day through a mobile clinic simulating game. After gaining general knowledge of global health and understanding of the real-life situation in Cambodia, the students were introduced to the EHR system, a system that is specifically developed for One-2-One to facilitate their daily operations in mobile clinics. The meaningful workshop not only demonstrated how life could be improved by technology, but it also raised the awareness of students on issues relating to global health, as well as the importance of taking part in community services.

It has been an amazingly unique experience for the organizing team, too. 'The most challenging part was probably teaching the students to use the software.' said Sandra, a software implementation team member, 'We have been working with it for four months so all the functions are obvious to us. For this, we had to gain perspective and try to imagine we are seeing it for the first time. It was challenging but a great training before we do the same in Cambodia.' Another member, Lance, a coding team member, commented 'The EHR system will replace the traditional paper-recording system, and it brings much convenience to One-2-One and patients in Cambodia. It gives me a great sense of achievement'.

The SIGHT team will be bringing the EHR system to Cambodia in June 2015. Like the team’s slogan “Simple Technology, Big Difference”, HKUST students are ready to make a difference for the betterment of human being, outside Hong Kong.

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繁體 简体 10 / 04 / 2015 HKUST Hosts Underwater Robot Competition for Junior Students and Students with Special Education Needs (From left front) Mr Kam-fung Yu, Prof Tim Woo, Mr Mo-sze Lee; (back) student mentor and the two winning teams. [Download Photo]

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is committed to the research and construction of robots and autonomous systems, in order to provide primary and secondary school students a chance to participate in the making of robots, HKUST invited students from Primary 4 to Form 3, as well as those with special education needs (SEN), to join an underwater robot competition at HKUST. A team of female students and a team with SEN members won the champion and the first runner-up.

HKUST Center for Global and Community Engagement, which co-organized the competition with School of Engineering, School of Business and Management, School of Science, School of Humanities and Social Science and Interdisciplinary Programs Office, recruited 27 student mentors to lead a 2-day workshop for 18 participating teams, teaching them basic skills in robot making.

The winner of the competition was a team of six female Form 2 students from Our Lady of the Rosary College, whose leading teacher Kam-fung Yu said they encountered quite some obstacles during the initial round of their first robot making competition. “They were not strong enough to tighten the screws, and the robot was out of balance in the water,” Mr Yu recalled. However, the team eventually gained the full marks of 500 points after repeated trial and error and making careful observation.

The first runner-up – a six-member team from Hong Kong and Kowloon Chiu Chow Public Association Secondary School (CCPASS), including one with hearing impairment and another with learning disabilities, gained only 185 points in the first round. However, they were persistent and reacted by modifying their robot’s design as well as rethinking their strategies, and ended up with an excellent score of 495 points.

Prof Tim Woo, Director of The Center for Global and Community Engagement, said the two teams are truly remarkable, “Neither were leading players in the first round, but they were calm and determined and they played as a team, which eventually brought them success.”

“HKUST has been committed to the research and building of robots and autonomous systems, we wish to spark junior students’ interest in science and mathematics through interesting activities such as robot making competition. This event has not only offered the contestants a stimulating learning experience, but has also given our University’s students an opportunity to serve the community.” Other award winners include Ebenezer School, Pui Ching Middle School, Yan Oi Tong Tin Ka Ping Secondary School and G.T. (Ellen Yeung) College.”

CCPASS Counselling Mistress Wing-yee Mok thanks HKUST’s student mentors for their diligent guidance, adding that the competition has helped boost their students’ confidence. “Some participating students were rather shy, but now they learnt the importance of coordination, the award is a big encouragement to them,” Ms Mok said.

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12 / 05 / 2015 Joyful Moments on Alumni Family Fun Day [Download Photo]

The School of Engineering Alumni Family Fun Day was successfully held on 12 Apr 2015 (Sun) on campus. Over 120 engineering alumni and faculty families joined this joyful event, contributing to a total of 430+ attendees. It provided a great opportunity for alumni to reminisce with fellow classmates and professors, share their recent news and enjoy a relaxed and fun-filled afternoon in nice weather with their families at their alma mater. Alumni had been excited to meet their respected teachers, all long-time familiar faces. They chattered about their career development and personal life enthusiastically, rekindling the happy memories of their school days.

The fun day was held at the lawn of HKUST campus and featured a variety of play booths, with games like Imagination Playground, Roller Slide and Rigamajig that stimulated kids’ creativity and unlock their limitless potential. The educational building kit Rigamajig (in Chinese: 小小工程師) enabled children to build robots, cars, spaceships or whatever they want freely, using materials such as wooden planks, wheels, pulleys, nuts and bolts. The game empowered children to learn about engineering and design through playing, with their engineer parents guiding and assisting from an engineer’s point of view.

Snack counters and a photo booth were also set up. Alumni and their families took instant photos with colorful props at the photo booth, bringing home photos of happy faces and fond memories. Children also enjoyed ice-cream, popcorn and candy floss.

The fun day was well-received and alumni welcome similar family events to be held again in the future.

Check out the Alumni Family Fun Day photo album.

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13 / 02 / 2015 Opening of Graduate Commons to Promote Collaborative and Multidisciplinary Learning From left: Prof Penger Tong, Associate Dean of Science (Research and Graduate Studies); Prof Roger Cheng, Associate Provost (Teaching and Learning); Mr Mark Hodgson, Vice-President for Administration and Business; Prof Joseph Lee, Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies; Dr Eden Woon, Vice-President for Institutional Advancement; Ms Chelsia Lau, Chief Designer, Design Strategic Concepts Group, Ford Motor Company; Prof James Lee, Dean of Humanities and Social Science; and Prof King Lun Yeung, Associate Dean of Engineering (Research and Graduate Studies) [Download Photo]

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology celebrated the grand opening of the Graduate Commons on 11 Feb, signifying a new phase of campus facility development for postgraduate students across all schools to engage in ideas exchange and collaborative learning.

Associate Dean of Engineering (Research and Graduate Studies) Prof King Lun Yeung said, “I am extremely pleased to see postgraduate students now have a fully-equipped common room for interdisciplinary discussion. The area serves as solid physical support to the holistic educational experience that we are committed to providing to our students. The establishment of the commons is set to cultivate a collaborative and multidisciplinary learning environment, which is very important for the development of our students to be all-round global citizens.”

Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies Prof Joseph Lee said, “HKUST has achieved outstanding ratings in the latest Research Assessment Exercise of the University Grants Committee, and this reflects the quality of our high-caliber postgraduate students. The University has been making great efforts to promote internationalization and offer more personal development opportunities. The commons contributes to these endeavors by providing an ideal place for students to connect with each other.”

The grand opening had the graceful presence of Ms Chelsia Lau, chief designer, design strategic concepts group, Ford Motor Company; Prof Ching Tang, IAS Bank of East Asia Professor and Chair Professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Chemistry and Physics; Prof Evelyn Hu, Visiting Professor of HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study and Electronic and Computer Engineering, and Tarr-Coyne Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, Harvard University; Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies Prof Joseph Lee, Vice-President for Institutional Advancement Dr Eden Woon, Vice-President for Administration and Business Mr Mark Hodgson, as well as other senior management.

Innovations of engineering students were showcased in the opening ceremony. These included creating computer graphics by Chuck-jee Chau and composing electronic music by Ronald Mo, both PhD students from Computer Science and Engineering, and the hand-gesture device by Phillip Chan, MPhil student in the Technology Leadership and Entrepreneurship program.

The grand opening featured a forum by Ms Chelsia Lau, who spoke on the future trends and challenges of the automobile market and criteria that future employees should fulfill. Chelsia inspired the audience with her flair for design, keen aesthetic sense and valuable experience in the car industry. Her success story served as a motivation for students to pursue their dreams with determination. The grand opening day also featured the Commons Showcase, where Prof Ching Tang and Prof King Chow, Director of Interdisciplinary Programs Office and Professor of Division of Life Science, shared with students on the topic of “Challenges in the Future Research and Education: Following the Trend or Creating a Wonderland”.

In a more casual occasion of the day, a tea conversation was held where Ms Chelsia Lau, Prof Ching Tang, Prof Evelyn Hu and Prof King Chow engaged in fruitful discussion with postgraduate students. A variety of topics were discussed, including the trends in research, qualities of a good leader, and the design of an environmentally-friendly car.

The well-received events provided valuable opportunities for postgraduate students across all schools to learn from the top leaders in the industry and academia.

Located near lift 29/30 on the 5th floor of the Academic Building, the Graduate Commons is an ideal place for postgraduate students across disciplines and schools to engage in intellectual, cultural, and social discussions. Fully-furnished and well-equipped with the latest audio-visual devices, the commons provides a welcoming and cozy environment and is a hub of inspiration and innovation.

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25 / 02 / 2015 First Aero Day Held With Great Success Executive Vice-President and Provost Prof Wei Shyy (6th from left, front row), Dean of Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief (4th from right, front row), and Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Prof Christopher Chao (middle, back row), Dr Susan Ying, Fellow of AIAA and VP-International serving on the AIAA Board of Directors (5th from left, front row) and other distinguished guests at the opening ceremony of the Aero Day [Download Photo]

The first Aero Day was held on campus on 24 Feb with great success. Jointly organized by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the HKUST Student Branch of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the Aero Day aims to present the development of the aviation industry, both locally and internationally; to introduce aerospace and aeronautical engineering to first-year students and assist with their choice of major; and to allow students, especially those in their final year, to understand the career opportunities offered in the industry.

The Aero Day kicked off with an opening ceremony where Executive Vice-President and Provost Prof Wei Shyy, Dean of Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief, and Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Prof Christopher Chao delivered welcoming speeches. The Aero Day featured exhibitions and presentations by industrial partners ranging from airlines, maintenance and repair organizations, original equipment manufacturers, to government agencies and professional organizations, which gave students a comprehensive picture of the industry. A highlight of the exhibition was the flight simulator experience, set up by the HKUST Aeronautics Interest Group (AIG), which enabled students to simulate piloting a plane with a flying game and control device. The event concluded with an AIAA Distinguished Lecture by Dr Susan Ying, Fellow of AIAA and VP-International serving on the AIAA Board of Directors, who spoke on “ABC of Commercial Aviation: Technology Insertion Rewards and Challenges”.

The move into Aerospace Engineering has been a major initiative of the School of Engineering over the past few years. A lot of developments have been rolled out, including the Department of Mechanical Engineering being renamed to Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2013, the recruitment of new faculty in aeronautical engineering, increased collaboration with the aviation industry on research, the launch of the Aeronautical Engineering Minor Program in 2013, and the establishment of the Aeronautics Interest Group (2011) and the HKUST Student Branch of AIAA (2013). These two student groups organize activities regularly, such as theme talks and company visits, and participate in international competitions to promote students’ interest in aerospace engineering. In January 2015, the AIG organized a flying program in Philippines where members received five hours of flying in a flight school there. The School of Engineering will continue to advance our development of aerospace engineering in education and research in the future.

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繁體 简体 27 / 04 / 2015 HKUST Hosts Hong Kong’s First University Student-Led Hackathon Mr Stone Huang, Technical Supervisor, Social Platform Department, Tencent, (3rd from left, back row)also one of the judges of Hackathon@HKUST 2015, together with two of the winning teams RoundUp and Everhelp, and the student organizing team. [Download Photo]

The first university student-led Hackathon in Hong Kong was successfully held on 28-29 March at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), drawing over 220 students and alumni in 47 teams from various local universities. The activity, entitled Hackathon@HKUST, was a 24-hour coding competition in which participants collaborate intensively on a software or hardware project, centering on one of the three themes of this year, namely charity, entrepreneurship, and women consumers.

Hackathon@HKUST was co-organized by a group of HKUST students and Tencent Foundation, with support from different units of the University, including the Engineering School, Business School, Entrepreneurship Center, Women Faculty Association and various HKUST alumni associations, as well as the start-up community. It aimed to promote students’ creativity and entrepreneurship spirit, and provide a platform where they can learn from industry professionals and entrepreneurs.

It was the second year HKUST students organized the contest – the first university student-led Hackathon in Hong Kong. This year, the competition was open to students and alumni of all local universities. The number of participants doubled from 105 in 24 teams last year to 225 in 47 teams this year.

In Hackathon@HKUST, participants identified a problem themselves and came up with ideas to solve it. The flexibility to find and solve their own problems enabled students to think creatively and develop innovative work. They worked in teams to design and build a prototype for a software or hardware application within 24 hours, and then presented their work to a judging panel comprising a representative from Tencent Foundation, founders of start-up enterprises, industry professionals, faculty members of HKUST and a partner institution. Some industry experts and entrepreneurs served as mentors to advise the teams during the 24 hours, giving participants a great opportunity to interact with members of the start-up community.

A total of 17 awards were presented to 12 teams or individuals during the competition. The Tencent Charitable Prizes went to RoundUp (donation website based on online transactions), Chariful (app which gamifies charitable acts), and Everhelp (app which helps people to use their fragmented time to do charity acts). Each of these three teams also received other awards, with RoundUp also receiving the 6waves Most Innovative Award and Tencent Audience’s Favorite (2nd Runner Up); Chariful also receiving the Tencent Best Design Award; and Everhelp also receiving the Radica Best Entrepreneurship Prize. The Tencent Best Entrepreneurship Prize and the HKUST Women Faculty Association Best App for Women Consumers went to Advancer (app for single mothers to deal with their daily problems). The GoGoVan Best Entrepreneurship Prize went to Freeloader (a location-based event-finding app). The PacificLink iMedia Best Entrepreneurship Prize went to Donation (use of QR scanning to digitize unwanted coins during cash payment). The Tencent Best Presentation Award went to heyPal (app that calculates friends’ availabilities from their schedule). The Tencent Best Developer Award went to Efemel (hardware module attached to a pen to extract physically drawn strokes and digitally represent them on a website in real-time). The DJI Best Student Organizer Award went to Long Hoang, an undergraduate student of Computer Science and Engineering, HKUST. The DJI Most Interesting Clip Award went to Kar Long Fan of HKU. The Tencent Audience’s Favorite (Winner) went to Baby Team (app that captures memories of a child’s growth) and Tencent Audience’s Favorite (1st Runner Up) went to Snatchit (online shopping app that incorporates social networking function).

Along with the 24-hour main Hackathon competition, a lot of pre- and post-Hackathon activities were organized to complete the Hackathon experience. To prepare participants for the Hackathon competition, nine workshops, talks, and information sessions were organized throughout March. Topics included software and hardware development, women consumers and potential market, business pitching, and dialogues with NGOs that explained real world problems faced by the needy. A post-Hackathon TechShow was organized on 30 March at HKUST, enabling the participating teams to demonstrate their prototypes. Post-Hackathon platforms and resources were also provided to assist winning teams to bring their prototypes to greater maturity.

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10 / 04 / 2015 PhD Research Excellence Recognized in SENG Awards Awardees and their supervisors, together with the Dean, Department Heads, as well as faculty and staff members [Download Photo]

Three recent graduates from different departments have been named the recipients of the School of Engineering PhD Research Excellence Awards 2014-15.

The awardees are Dr Feng Xuan from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Dr Yanjiao Chen from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Dr Shu Yang from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering. All of them are 2014 graduates.

The School of Engineering has established the PhD Research Excellence Award scheme since 2011 in recognition of the outstanding achievements by our PhD students and recent graduates. The awards are granted to those who have made influential contributions to their discipline during PhD studies at HKUST. Dr Feng Xuan [Download Photo]

Dr Xuan’s research work at HKUST mainly focuses on electrochemical nucleic acid sensing technologies. During the past four years, he has developed a series of strategies to realize “immobilization-free” electrochemical nucleic acid sensing with high sensitivity and selectivity. These works have led to five high-impact journal publications (one of them highlighted in Analytical Chemistry as “accelerated article”, one highlighted in Journal of the American Chemical Society Spotlights) and he has presented his research works at 5 international conferences. Notably, his works have been cited over 130 times during the past three years. Besides journal publications, one US patent and one Chinese patent are also filed based on his works which shows that his works are not only academically interesting, but also have potential commercial value. In addition, two General Research Fund (GRF) grants of totally HK$2 million were funded based on his PhD thesis work. These achievements are all excellent recognition of the high quality of his research work at HKUST.

Currently, he is a postdoc researcher of Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, USA. Dr Yanjiao Chen [Download Photo]

Dr Chen has been actively working on the interdisciplinary research field combining wireless networks and microeconomics. She has studied the non-cooperative, competitive interactions among various parties in wireless networks using game theory and optimization as modeling means and solution tools. She has published more than 20 papers (15 first-author papers) in top IEEE journals and conferences. She has received many prestigious scholarships, including Hong Kong PhD Fellowship, Google Hong Kong Anita Borg Scholarship (2013 & 2014), Google PhD Scholarship and HK Telecom Institute of Information Technology Post-Graduate Excellence Scholarship, to name a few.

She will be a postdoc in the iQua Research Group at the University of Toronto, Canada in April 2015. Dr Shu Yang [Download Photo]

Dr Yang’s research works focus on the core technology and physical mechanisms of wide bandgap gallium nitride semiconductor devices for the next generation of energy-efficient power conversion systems. In particular, she has revealed the underlying physics and developed a technology to overcome the grand dielectric/semiconductor interface challenge for enhanced device stability and reliability. She has authored and co-authored over 40 papers (with 14 first-authored) in top-notch international journals and conference proceedings, including IEEE Electron Device Letters, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Applied Physics Letters, International Electron Devices Meeting (2013 & 2014), etc. She was the only invited student speaker in 2012 International Workshop on Nitride Semiconductors held in Sapporo, Japan. Her research works have been widely cited and featured in industry magazines such as Compound Semiconductor and Semiconductor Today.

Currently, she is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at HKUST.

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21 / 04 / 2015 2015 SENG Three Minute Thesis Competition Judges and winners: (From left to right) Dr Arthur McNeill (Director of the Center for Language Education), Mr Graham Young (Communication Tutor of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), Prof King Lun Yeung (Associate Dean of Engineering), Miao Yu, Ping Geng, Belsy Yuen, Prof T C Pong (Director of the Center for Engineering Education Innovation), Prof David Rossiter (Associate Professor of Engineering Education in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering) [Download Photo]

Following the success of the 2014 SENG RPg Communication Competition, the Center for Engineering Education Innovation of the School of Engineering (SENG) held the 2015 SENG Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition on April 15, 2015. 3MT® is a research communication competition that aims at challenging research postgraduate students (RPg) to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries so that they can be presented concisely to a non-specialist audience. Till today 130 universities from 19 countries have brought 3MT® to campus, such as the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.

This year eight students from six departments were shortlisted and presented their research projects to the audience composed of research students and the judging panel including both SENG faculty members and communication professionals. Ping Geng, a Chemcial and Biomolecular Engineering PhD student under the supervision of Prof Guohua Chen, won the championship. The second and the third places went to Miao Yu, a Bioengineering Graduate Program PhD student under the supervision of Prof Shuhuai Yao, and Belsy Yuen, a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering PhD student under the supervision of Prof Christopher Chao. Ping Geng also won the People’s Choice award, which was chosen by the student audience.

During the competition, the finalists, the judging panel, and the audience also shared their experience of giving presentations and exchanged ideas about how to improve research presentation skills.

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