About Us

Professor CHEN Zhi is an internationally renowned scholar and researcher in Chinese Studies. His diversified interests in Chinese Studies include classical studies and early Chinese culture and history, historical writings, traditional Chinese poetry, excavated documents: bronze inscriptions and bamboo and silk writings, and intellectual history of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of several prestigious academic journals and book series, both Chinese and English, and was appointed as local convenor of Chinese Language and Literature in the Panel of Humanities of RAE 2009-14. Professor Chen published extensively in the US, Europe, the UK, Japan, and Greater China Regions in top-tier venues.

In addition to his remarkable scholarship, Professor Chen is an experienced university administrator. Apart from being the Head of the Department of Chinese at HKBU between 2010 and 2013, Professor Chen was Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts between 2015 and 2017. He was the founding Director of Mr. Simon Suen and Mrs. Mary Suen Sino-Human Institute between 2011 and 2014. Between 2012 and 2014, Professor Chen was appointed Founding Acting Director of Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology and became the Director from 2014 to present. From 2018, Professor Chen served as the Board Director of Wuhan College. Professor Chen joined Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College in 2018 as the Vice President (Academic) and was promoted to Provost in 2020. From 2022 to 2024, Professor Chen held the position of President at Hong Kong Chu Hai College. Presently, Professor Chen serves as President of Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College.

Professor Patrick Chau is Provost and Chair Professor in Information Systems and Business Analytics at UIC. Professor Chau received his PhD in Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He was elected President of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) in 2021-2022. AIS is the premier academic society in the Information Systems discipline with over 5000 members from close to 100 countries around the world. He was the first and only scholar from China elected to this presidency since the establishment of AIS in 1994. Professor Chau was appointed “Chang Jiang Scholars Programme” Chair Professorship by the Ministry of Education in 2010. He has also held Padma and Hari Harilela Professorship in Strategic Information Management at The University of Hong Kong, Qiushi Chair Professorship at Zhejiang University and Lee Dak Sum Chair Professor in Information Systems and Operations Management at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. He received AIS Fellow Award in 2013, an honour from AIS extended only to a very small number of scholars in the discipline of Information Systems globally each year.

Professor Chau conducts research in IT adoption and electronic commerce and has more than 100 papers published in prestigious journals in the Information Systems discipline. He has been on Elsevier’s List of Top 2% Scientists worldwide since its first release. As of February 2024, his Google Scholar citations exceed 28,400 with an H-index of 62 and, in Scopus, more than 12,000 with an h-index of 44. He is Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of Information and Management, an A* journal in the Australia’s ABDC Journal List and a Level 3 journal in the UK’s ABS Journal List. Under his editorship, the 2-year impact factor of the Journal has grown from 1.84 in 2014 to 10.33 in 2021. He is also a Senior Editor of the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, which is an A* journal in the Australian ABDC Journal List and a 4* journal in the UK’s ABS Journal List. He was Co-editor of Electronic Commerce Research & Applications and Global Editor of DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems.

Before joining UIC, Professor Chau was Vice-Provost for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Prior to that position, he had served at The University of Hong Kong for almost twenty years, holding various management positions including Director of the School of Business and Associate Dean at the Faculty of Business and Economics.

Zhou Yongming is a chair professor and Vice President (Academic) at UIC. He attended Nanjing University from 1980-1987 and taught briefly in the Chinese Department before studying abroad. He received his PhD in cultural anthropology from Duke University in 1997. He became an assistant professor in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999, obtained the tenure in 2005 and the full professorship in 2010. In 2001-2002, he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. Before joining UIC, he was a chair professor and directed the Center for Social Sciences and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). He also served as the Executive Director of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at SUSTech. He was appointed as a “Qiushi” Chair Professor by Zhejiang University and a distinguished professor by Sun Yat-Sen University and Chongqing University.

Professor Zhou specializes in historical and cultural anthropology. He is the author of books Anti-Drug Crusades in Twentieth-Century China: Nationalism, History, and State-Building (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999) and Historicizing Online Politics: Telegraphy, the Internet, and Political Participation in China (Stanford University Press, 2006). He has also been a Mellon Fellow at the Needham Research Institute at Cambridge, a visiting fellow at the East Asian Institute (1999) and a senior fellow at the Asia Institute (2008) at the National University of Singapore. Professor Zhou served as the president of the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs in 2012. His latest “roadology” project focuses on the socio-cultural impacts of transnational road building on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau and in the Great Mekong Subregion. He is the editor of “Roadology”: Roads, Space and Culture and Chinese Anthropology, and is editor-in-chief of the Heritage Studies.

Professor Mao Yaqing is an education expert who received his PhD Degree from Beijing Normal University. He is the Deputy Head of the National Working Group of Experts on the Training of Primary and Secondary School Principals, and Vice Chairman of the National Association for the Training of Primary and Middle School Principals. He is also the Director of the Research Centre of Principal Leadership at the Beijing Normal University, and a senior visiting scholar of London University as well as the University of Michigan. Professor Mao Yaqing’s research mainly covers education leadership, school management improvement and quality of higher education and management. He has published over 10 books and more than 100 papers on recognised periodicals. In 2005 and 2010 respectively, both from the Ministry of Education of China, Professor Mao Yaqing received The New Century Excellent Talent Award and Outstanding Research Award of China Academic Humanities and Social Sciences.

Professor Pan Jianxin received his PhD from Hong Kong Baptist University in 1996, followed by his postdoctoral fellowship in Rothamsted Research of the UK (1996-1999), research associate in the University of St Andrews (1999-2000) and lecturership in Keele University (2000-2002). During his academic pursuit in the University of Manchester from 2002, he was promoted as Senior Lecturer in 2004, Reader in 2005 and Full Professor in 2006. Professor Pan had served as the Head of Probability and Statistics Group, on Senior Leadership Team of the School and the Director of Internationalization of the Department of Mathematics at The University of Manchester, UK.

Professor Jianxin Pan is an internationally renowned researcher in statistical science and his research interests are within statistical modeling, statistical learning, and data science with application to medicine, public health, finance as well as industry. He has published over 130 research articles in journals of statistics and multidisciplinary research, and three research monographs with Springer and Science Press. He was awarded fundings from various research councils including those in the UK and Europe.

Professor Jianxin Pan is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute. He was the Chair of the Royal Statistical Society Manchester Group and has been serving as an Associate Editor for several prestigious academic journals, including Biometrics (2008-2018), Biostatistics and Epidemiology (2013-), Biometrical Journal (2016-), and Journal of Multivariate Analysis (2019-) and Electronic Journal of Statistics (2022-). He has successfully supervised over 20 PhD students and over 50 MSc/MPhil students.

Driven by an unwavering commitment to academic excellence, Professor Huang Yu brings his wealth of academic experience to the fore.

Professor Huang received a BA degree in Journalism and an MA in Communication Studies from Renmin University of China and his PhD from the University of Westminster, UK, in 1993. Professor Huang joined the Hong Kong Baptist University in 1994 as Lecturer and has since been promoted to Chair Professor. He has demonstrated exceptional leadership in education. He had taken up various management roles in HKBU, including Executive Associate Dean of Graduate School between 2011 and 2013, Dean of the School of Communication during 2013-2022, and Associate Vice-President from 2014 to 2022. Professor Huang was also appointed as the Senior Advisor to the President to provide professional advice on matters related to the development and strategic initiatives of HKBU. Professor Huang has made prolific contributions to scholarship in the fields of Journalism, Media and Communication. He has authored over 100 articles published in prestigious journals and more than 10 scholarly books in both English and Chinese in the field of his expertise. Professor Huang has further enriched the scholarly landscape through editorial roles. Recognising his exceptional contributions to the professional field, the Chinese Communication Association honoured him with the Lifetime Achievement Award in May 2023.

Professor Stella Cho is a seasoned accounting academic. She earned her PhD degree from the University of Hong Kong. Professor Stella Cho’s teaching and research interests are in taxation and corporate governance. She has published several books in her profession-related areas and her research papers were widely published in many internationally referred journals as well. Professor Stella Cho was a member of the editorial board of the Asia Pacific Journal of Taxation. Between 2008 – 2020 academic years, she served as the first Dean of the Division of Business and Management, UIC. Prior to joining UIC, she taught at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for years. She has rich experience in university management, teaching, research, and professional & public services, both in Hong Kong and the Mainland.

Professor Stella Cho is renowned for her contribution in the accounting profession in both the HKSAR and the Mainland. She is a Certified Public Accountant and a fellow member of a number of professional accountancy bodies including HKICPA, ACCA, TIHK, HKSI, SCAA, just to name a few. Professor Stella Cho has served the HKICPA as an elected Council Member for ten terms and the President of HKIAAT for three terms. She was elected as a member of the HKSAR Election Committee (Accountancy Sub-sector) for three terms. Professor Stella Cho was appointed by the HKSAR Government to serve in many government committees, review panels, appeal boards. Currently, she is an appointed member of the Panel for Public Interest Entities Auditors Review Tribunal, and the Deposit Protection Appeals Tribunal. In 2016 and 2019, she was appointed as a member of the 1st and the 2nd Advisory Board of Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises, Ministry of Finance, PRC, respectively. In 2017, she was appointed as the Vice President of the Accounting Society of Zhuhai. She was elected as a member of the 4th Council for the Promotion of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cooperation in 2018, and the Deputy Director of its Accounting Profession Committee in 2019.

Professor Li Jianhui received his Bachelor’s Degree from Jilin University and MPhil Degree from Beijing Normal University. He was conferred a PhD by Peking University. Prior to joining UIC, Professor Li was Deputy Director of the Office of Graduate Training of the Graduate School and has served as Vice Dean of the College of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University for two years. Since 1996, Professor Li Jianhui has been invited as visiting scholar to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University, the University of California Berkeley, the University of Oxford, Needham Research Institute of Cambridge and Utrecht University.

Professor Li Jianhui’s research is in the area of philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and social studies of science. His research was supported by the National Social Science Foundation as a major programme, key programme, and general programme, respectively. He published over 8 books and more than 60 papers. Two books were awarded as excellent achievements of the Beijing Philosophy and Social Science Award, and another book was awarded as an excellent achievement of the University Research Award of Ministry of Education (Humanity and Social Science).

Professor Adolf K.Y. Ng received his PhD degree from the University of Oxford, excelling in the research and teaching of transport, global supply chains, and green logistics. Professor Ng’s scholarly outputs include eight books, more than 110 papers in leading journals, and other forms of publications. He receives numerous prestigious accolades, and frequently offers strategic advice to major organisations, such as the United Nations (UN), the European Commission (EC) and the African Development Bank (AFDB). He is currently an Associate Editor of Maritime Policy & Management.

Tze-ki Hon received a BA degree from the University of Hong Kong, a MA degree from the University of Michigan, and a PhD degree from the University of Chicago. Previously Professor Hon taught at Hanover College in Indiana (1992-1996), State University of New York at Geneseo (1996-2016), and City University of Hong Kong (2017-2021). He is a specialist of the Yijing, particularly its textual body and its commentarial traditions. He has also published on the cultural history of China, modern Chinese thought, and the western studies of Chinese classics. He wrote three books: The Yijing and Chinese Politics (2005), Revolution as Restoration (2013), The Allure of the Nation (2015). He co-authored Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) (2014) with Geoffrey Redmond. He edited six volumes including Confucianism for the Contemporary World (2017), Cold War Cities (2021), and The Other Yijing (2022). His articles have appeared in Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Modern China, Monumenta Serica, and Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies.

Professor Xuanyuan Zhe received a BSc degree in electronic engineering and mathematics from Peking University and a PhD from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is now a professor at the Department of Statistics and Data Science of Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College. Prior to that, Professor Xuanyuan was with the computer science department of Sun Yat-sen University and the 2012 central research lab of Huawei. His research interests are within computer networks and connected intelligent robots.

Professor Eugene Ch’ng is a distinguished scholar in the interdisciplinary domain of digital culture and heritage, and a recognised expert in XR technologies. He presently serves as the Editor-in-Chief for PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality, MIT Press.

Professor Ch'ng holds a BA (Hons) in 3D Design for the Built Environment from De Montfort University, UK, and an MSc in IT from Multimedia University Malaysia. Notably, he earned the Best PhD Award in 2007 from the Electronics, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has led pioneering centres such as the IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre and the Digital Humanities Hub at the University of Birmingham (2011-2013), and the NVIDIA Joint-Lab on Mixed Reality at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China from 2016 to 2023 as founding director. His contributions have been instrumental in advancing digital technologies for cultural heritage, which garnered funding awards from the UK, Europe, and China. He has published over 135 articles, among which were two significant volumes of work ‘Visual Heritage in the Digital Age’ and ‘Visual Heritage: Digital Approaches in Heritage Science’ that have contributed to the global discourse on the application of scientific and digital methodologies in cultural heritage.

Professor Ch’ng has been invited twice to the Royal Society, presenting research at the Summer Science Exhibition, and was the organiser and speaker at the Royal Society Theo Murphy Scientific meeting in 2017. He has held over 40 international exhibitions on art, computational media, and XR technology research showcase in the digital heritage space, and has also appeared in National Geographic Television and Channel Four’s Time Team Special. Professor Ch’ng was awarded the Ningbo Municipal Individual 3315 Talent award in 2015, and the Minjiang Scholar in 2022. He was named among the top 2% most-cited scientists in the world by Stanford University in 2023.

Professor Guo Haipeng received his BS degree in Electronic Engineering from Nanchang University of Aeronautics in 1993, his MS degree in Mechanical and Electrical Automation from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1996, and his PhD degree in Computing and Information Science from Kansas State University, USA in 2003.

He joined UIC in 2005 and has held various positions including Head of the Computer Science and Technology programme (2005-2011), Director of the Whole Person Education Office (2006-2022), Chairman of UIC Union, Acting Head of the English Language Centre (2022-2024), and Associate Dean of the School of General Education (2022-2024).

Professor Guo was trained as a computing scientist with a focus on artificial intelligence and probabilistic reasoning. Over the past two decades, his research interests have expanded to include whole person education, Confucianism, and process philosophy. He published the book An Introduction to Whole Person Education Emotional Intelligence (2016) and co-edited An Introduction to Bayesian Networks (2006) and Towards the Whitehead Century (2021). In 2023, he founded the Centre for Whitehead Studies at UIC, the world's first philosophical research centre named after Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1946).

After obtaining her Bachelor of Social Science (Hons) degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ms Ashura Lam furthered her studies and fields of research across multiple disciplines. She was awarded a Juris Doctor degree as well as a Master of Science in New Media by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, in addition to becoming a Master of Arts in Language Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Ms Ashura Lam possesses extensive experience in administration, academic quality assurance and committee servicing in universities of Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland. As the Chief Strategic Development Officer (CSDO), she supports the President/Provost to develop College strategic plans and strengthen rapport with different higher education institutions; and help to manage risks associated with strategic initiatives.

Before assuming her current responsibilities, Ms Lam served as the Director of UIC's Academic and Administrative Quality Assurance Office and Assistant to Vice-President (Academic). She also assumed the position of Administration Director of the Graduate School between December 2018 and August 2024; and Head of President and College Office between September 2019 and December 2022.