Prof. Jiaya Jia, Prof. Chandra Nair and Prof. Jianbin Xu from the Faculty of Engineering have been elected Fellows of the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in the class of 2018, for their remarkable accomplishments in “deblurring techniques in computational photography”, “network information theory” and “nanoscale electronic materials and devices” respectively. The total number of recipients each year does not exceed 0.1% of the total voting IEEE membership. So far, a total of 31 out of 110 Engineering professors in CUHK have been conferred such recognition. 

Prof. Jiaya Jia

Prof. Jiaya Jia is an artificial intelligence expert and has significantly contributed to computational photography. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and joined the Computer Science and Engineering Department in 2004.

Computational photography is an emerging new field created by the convergence of computer graphics, computer vision and photography. Its role is to overcome the limitations of traditional cameras by using computational techniques to produce a richer, more vivid, perhaps more perceptually meaningful representation of the visual world, in order to eventually capture, manipulate, and interact with visual media. Prof. Jiaya Jia has contributed a number of new techniques for super resolution, deblurring, colourisation, editing, matting, composition and panorama construction.

Prof. Jia has published over a hundred papers with 11,000 citations in Google Scholar. He received the Young Researcher Award 2008 and Research Excellence Award 2009 from CUHK. His projects have been supported and funded by numerous international IT giants like Microsoft, Qualcomm, Adobe, Intel, NVIDIA, Amazon, Lenovo and Huawei.

Prof. Chandra Nair

Chandra Nair was a Stanford Graduate Fellow and a Microsoft Graduate Fellow during his graduate studies, M.S. and Ph.D., at the Electrical Engineering department of Stanford University. Later, he became a post-doctoral researcher with the theory group at Microsoft Research, Redmond. He has been a faculty member of the Information Engineering department at CUHK since 2007.

Prof. Nair received the 2016 Information Theory Society paper award for developing a novel method to establish the extremality of Gaussian distributions for families of non-convex sub-additive functionals on probability spaces. He is currently a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Information Theory Society.  He serves as the programme director for the undergraduate programme on Mathematics and Information Engineering and as the director of the Institute of Theoretical Computer Science and Communication at CUHK.

In his early research career, he considered random versions of combinatorial optimisation problems. His doctoral thesis resolved a longstanding conjecture about the assignment problem and his post-doctoral work resolved another conjecture about the number partitioning problem. At CUHK, his research focus shifted to fundamental mathematical problems in network information theory. He has managed to solve a number of decades-old open problems and make substantial progress on others, for which he was elevated to an IEEE Fellowship.

Prof. Jianbin Xu

Prof. Jianbin Xu received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Nanjing University, in Physics and Electronic Science and Engineering. His doctoral dissertation at the University of Konstanz focused on the near-field sensing and nanoscopic energy transfer and heat transport associated with electronic processes. Right afterwards, he joined CUHK in 1993 and became professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering in 2002.

He is well known for his significant contributions to nanoscale characterisation and nanomaterials, and more recently, nanoscale devices. In span of his research career, he has been engaged in a number of challenging issues, namely exploring the heat transfer across a vacuum and an air gap down to submicron range which has significant implications on heat transfer in electron devices; exploring commercially-available atomic force microscope (AFM) based crystallography and metrology, so as to improve the technique of precision engineering, which is important for semiconductor industry and beyond; understanding the electronic properties of ultrathin gate oxides for MOS transistors which are building blocks of the contemporary information and communications technology (ICT); developing an interface engineering strategy for graphene and two-dimensional semiconductors as well as organic semiconductors which hold a great potential for flexible electronics.

Prof. Xu has published extensively on advanced electronic and photonic materials and devices, as well as on nanotechnology in peer-reviewed professional journals and conferences. He has published over 400 papers with about 7,500 citations in Google Scholar and Web of Science, and over 5,700 peer citations, with 8 being the highly cited paper of Essential Science Indicators (the top 1% in the Science and Technology sector).  He is a recipient of Joint Research Fund for Overseas Chinese, Hong Kong and Macau Scholars, funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, a nationally prestigious award (formerly National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (Overseas Chinese)). He is also the Outstanding Fellow of the Faculty of Engineering, recipient of Research Excellence Award, CUHK, and Chang Jiang (Cheung Kong) Scholar Chair Professor in 2014.

About IEEE

The IEEE is the world's largest professional organisation dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity, with more than 430,000 members in over 160 countries.  IEEE Fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognised by the technical community as a prestigious honour and an important career achievement.

The CUHK cross-institutional theme-based research scheme (TRS) project “Smart Solar Energy Harvesting, Storage, and Utilization” led by Prof. Ching-ping Wong, Dean of Engineering was presented at the “TRS Public Symposium” on 9 December 2017. In the Symposium, a total of 14 projects funded from the first 3 rounds of the scheme were showcased to 270 stakeholders from the research community, industry and government representatives.

The objective of this scheme is to focus academic research efforts of the UGC-funded universities on themes of strategic importance to the long-term development of Hong Kong. So far a total of 7 rounds of projects has been funded.

The team reported substantial progress in various areas of solar energy technology, putting Hong Kong on the map. They include the best-performing energy harvesting and storage technologies worldwide, development of various new materials, a highly efficient online energy generation scheduling algorithm for microgrids,  the first-ever smart energy management online system “Woo Sing Power” in CUHK student hostel, as well as the first-of-its-kind smart microgrid laboratory in Hong Kong.  

The Theme-based Research Scheme (TRS) is one of the prominent research funding schemes administrated by the Research Grants Council (RGC) with the objective to focus academic research effort of the University Grants Council (UGC)-funded universities on theme of strategic importance to the long-term development of Hong Kong.

For more details, please visit the project website at https://sse.erg.cuhk.edu.hk/sse/

A genetic engineering team of 15 undergraduate students of Life Science and Biomedical Engineering has been awarded a Gold medal at the international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) 2017 Giant Jamboree held in Boston, USA, for developing a novel rapid test for an influenza subtype. The winning project has extensive potential applications and may help fight the growing threat of a bird flu epidemic. This is the fifth time that a CUHK team has won gold in the annual premier synthetic biology competition.

The winning project designed by the CUHK team was named “Dr. Switch: A Rapid On-Site Method for Subtyping Influenza A virus”. Presently, diagnostic testing for viruses is only available in the laboratory and it often takes a day or more for the result to come back, due to lengthy transportation and testing time. There is a rapid test which is quicker, but the result is preliminary (Only type A, B or C) which cannot show the subtype of the virus (H1N1, H5N1 or H7N9, etc.). The CUHK iGEM team has developed a rapid test system that can distinguish the subtype of the Influenza A virus. The test can be done on-site in animal farms, at borders or in markets, and the results will come within hours, which will improve anti-epidemic efficiency.

This novel test is based on the Toehold Switch mechanism that, in theory, could detect any RNA target sequence, including the Influenza A virus. A Toehold switch, acting as a biosensor, will undergo conformational change and gene expression, which will produce a visible signal like colour change, in the presence of a specific RNA target – known as a trigger. It was recently used for the detection of Zika.

The CUHK iGEM team is the first group to have developed a web-based tool (http://2017.igem.org/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK) to help researchers designing Toehold Switch, and applied this method to detect influenza viral subtypes that could work in hours. Their project was nominated for the Best Diagnostic Project, together with the University of Oxford and the Ecole Polytech Fed de Lausanne (EPFL). The prize went to Oxford in the end.

Students have interviewed various stakeholders, including medical experts, government organisations and most importantly, poultry workers. They hoped the test can cater more to the needs of users. For example, the students at first estimated that poultry workers would be interested in conducting virus tests for their own poultry, which could reduce the financial losses caused by the spread of bird flu. However, when they visited a poultry farm owner, they received an answer different from what they expected. The owner’s view was  that the test should be conducted by the government or an independent inspection body. Students then consulted government organisations such as the Department of Health, and the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. All these visits allowed students to further understand the procedures for influenza testing.

Prof. Chan Ting Fung, one of the instructors of the team and associate professor of the School of Life Science at CUHK, remarked, “The enthusiasm of the undergraduate students for scientific research is admirable. They have spent just over a year, selected their topic of research, failed many times, but finally they achieved a remarkable result. They also showed team spirit and demonstrated the importance of combining molecular biology and engineering knowledge. I hope they will continue to uphold their enthusiasm, participate in scientific research and contribute to society.”

About iGEM Competition 

There were 310 teams from around the world participating in this year’s world giant jamboree, and of them only 108 teams achieved gold.

iGEM is an annual premier synthetic biology competition worldwide for high school, undergraduate and postgraduate students.  It was established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2004 to foster students’ learning in synthetic biology, promote collaboration among students and nurture biology talents.  Participating teams are required to specify, design, build and test simple biological systems made from standard, interchangeable biological parts.  The accomplishments of these student teams often lead to important advances or provide solutions to tackle problems in medicine, food and nutrition, energy and the environment.