On a biannual basis, HKU bestows the title of Chair Professor on scholars of international stature who have made a sustained and distinguished contribution to advance knowledge in their field. Fourteen members of the academic staff at the University of Hong Kong received this distinction in 2025 from January 1 through August 31.
They are Professors Tarani Chandola, Nicolas Dauphas, Nicholas Fang, Xin He, Lijian Jin, Nancy Law, Wai Keung Leung, Xuechen Li, Roni Michaely, Shunqing Shen, Yang Wang, Xiaobo Yin, Bing Zhang, and Chunyi Zhi.
Faculty of Business and Economics (HKU Business School)
Roni MICHAELY has been named Professor, Chair of Finance and Entrepreneurship.
Michaely is The Hong Kong Jockey Club Professor in Finance and Entrepreneurship at HKU Business School and Associate Dean (Global Engagement). He also serves as the founding Executive Director of the HKU Tel-Aviv Innovation Hub and co-director of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Enterprise Sustainability Global Research Institute (ESGRI). Before joining HKU, Michaely held The Rudd Family Professorship at Cornell University and Cornell Tech.
His research focuses on empirical corporate finance and capital markets, emphasising the effects of informational and agency frictions on corporate decisions, investors, and information intermediaries. More recently, his work has centred on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices and sustainability within capital markets.
Michaely’s publications have accrued over 35,000 citations, and he has delivered more than 300 invited talks globally. His research appears in leading academic journals including the Journal of Finance and Journal of Financial Economics, and he is frequently featured in major media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The Economist. He is also a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute and co-founder of two startups.
Faculty of Dentistry
Lijian JIN has been named Professor, Chair of Periodontology.
Jin is Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry and Modern Dental Laboratory Professor in Clinical Dental Science. He has served as Councillor of FDI World Dental Federation, Chairs of FDI Science Committee and FDI Global Periodontal Health Project Task Team; Member of Board of Directors at International Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research; President of Asian Pacific Society of Periodontology; and Board Member of International Academy of Periodontology.
Jin’s research focuses on periodontal etiopathogenesis, periodontal medicine, and nanotechnology for oral/periodontal healthcare. His pioneering work is widely acclaimed, e.g., Porphyromonas gingivalis persisters and tackling approaches, new innate immune molecules in human gingiva, novel contributions to periodontal medicine, nano-based antimicrobials/anti-inflammatory agents and delivery systems, and strategic framework for global periodontal health.
He has published 297 journal papers and books/chapters, delivered over 240 invited lectures nationally/internationally, and served the editorial boards of leading journals in his fields, e.g., Journal of Clinical Periodontology, and Journal of Dental Research. His team has received multiple international prizes, e.g., a Gold Medal at 47th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva. Jin has been honoured with the prestigious Fellowship ad hominem from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
Faculty of Education
Nancy LAW has been named Professor, Chair of Learning Sciences and Technology.
Law is Associate Dean (Strategic Development) of the Faculty of Education and the Founding Director of the HKU Centre for Information Technology in Education (CITE).
Her research centres on technology-enhanced learning innovations, emphasising network models of teacher learning, shared virtual environments, and comparative analyses of educational ICT policy and practice. Law has contributed to over 100 peer-reviewed publications and secured multiple competitive grants at HKU. Her projects explore learning and assessment in digital contexts from a developmental perspective, ecological models of educational change for fostering effective teacher development and scalable technology integration in classrooms. She has also been developing an integrated design-aware learning analytics system that includes a learning design language, methodological approach, and technology tools to support pedagogically sound and agile multimodal learning, assessment, and feedback design and implementation.
Widely recognised for her expertise, she was elected Fellow of the International Society of the Learning Sciences in 2019 and received the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship in 2015. Law has delivered keynote speeches across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australia, and serves on several international advisory boards on educational technology. Her work has had direct influence on policy and practice reforms in Hong Kong and internationally.
Faculty of Engineering
Nicholas FANG has been named Professor, Chair of Photonics Innovation.
A Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Fang is also Co-Director of Central User Facilities at the University of Hong Kong. Before joining HKU, Fang served on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
His research spans micro- and nanotechnology, focusing on scalable manufacturing techniques for wave-functional materials and devices. Fang’s innovations in energy conversion, optical communication, and biomedical imaging have led to over 16 patent applications in nano- and micro-fabrication, additive manufacturing, and imaging technologies. Many of these patents have demonstrated strong industry relevance and have been adopted by startups and other commercial entities.
Fang served on the editorial board of multiple journals such as the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing and PhotoniX, and as co-Founder and Chief Scientist (consultant) of Boston Micro Fabrication Company. His professional recognition includes election as a Fellow of the Optical Society of America; the Brillouin Medal from the International Photonics Society; the ASME Chao and Trigger Young Manufacturing Engineer Award; the Ernst Abbe Medal from the International Commission of Optics, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and inclusion in the MIT Technology Review’s “35 Innovators Under 35.”
Xiaobo YIN has been named Professor, Chair of Sustainability Technology.
Yin is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a Professor of Physics (by courtesy). He serves as the Associate Vice-President (Research Infrastructure) at HKU and has previously held academic positions at the University of Colorado Boulder, Stanford University, and the University of California Berkeley.
Yin’s research focuses on fundamental and applied investigations of energy-matter interactions across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, including in extreme environments. He designs and creates functional materials engineering their micro-and nano-structures. Simultaneously, he develops scalable and sustainable manufacturing technologies to produce these advanced materials and structures over a large scale, addressing critical challenges in climate, water, energy, and food security. His work on terrestrial radiative cooling was recognised by the Institute of Physics as one of the Top Ten Breakthroughs of 2017 and has received widespread media attention.
He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles, accumulating more than 30,000 citations, which places him among the world’s most Highly Cited Researchers according to Clarivate Analytics. Yin is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and SPIE. His notable awards include the Kavli Foundation Early Career Lectureship in Materials Science, the Moore Inventor Fellowship, and the Xplorer Prize.
Chunyi ZHI has been named Professor, Chair of Energy Materials.
Prior to joining HKU, Zhi held senior research positions at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan and was Chair Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at City University of Hong Kong.
He has extensive expertise in aqueous electrolyte-based batteries, zinc-ion batteries, solid-state batteries, and catalysts for sustainable development, contributing to high-impact publications in Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Reviews Materials, Nature Communications, Joule, PNAS, Science Advances, JACS, and others. His work has had a significant influence on energy materials and devices. Zhi serves as Editor-in-Chief of Nano Research Energy and Material Research Letters and holds editorial positions at several leading scientific journals. As of July 2025, he has published over 500 papers and been granted more than 100 patents.
Zhi is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a member of the Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences, a Clarivate Analytics Global Highly Cited Researcher (2019-2024, Materials Science; 2024, Environment and Ecology), and an RGC Senior Research Fellow.
Faculty of Law
Xin HE has been named Professor, Chair of Law and Society.
He, who is also the Mok Sau-King Professor in Law, joined the university in 2018 from the City University of Hong Kong, where he taught for 15 years.
An award-winning scholar whose work has reshaped the field, he has consistently published in top journals and with leading university presses. His empirical research on China’s law and society—particularly his groundbreaking work on Chinese courts—has fundamentally changed our understanding of their operation and the broader legal system. His scholarly influence extends to legal consciousness, dispute resolution, law and gender, law and social movements, and comparative law.
LKS Faculty of Medicine
Wai Keung LEUNG has been named Professor, Chair of Gastrointestinal Medicine.
Leung is Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation Professor in Gastroenterology at HKU. He was the Chief Director of the Clinical Trials Centre and the Associate Dean (Research) of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine.
Leung’s clinical and research expertise focuses on colonoscopy, gastric cancer prevention, gastrointestinal bleeding, Helicobacter pylori epidemiology and treatment, and the epidemiology of gastrointestinal diseases. His work incorporates clinical trials, big data analytics, and epidemiological studies to advance understanding and improve prevention of gastrointestinal cancers and related disorders. Leung’s research has significantly shaped clinical practices and guidelines in gastrointestinal medicine in Hong Kong and internationally.
Leung is Editor-in-Chief of the HELICOBACTER journal and is highly regarded for his prolific scholarly output and leadership in gastroenterology, with influential publications in prestigious journals such as Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Gastroenterology, and Gut. Leung holds additional leadership roles including serving as the previous President of the Hong Kong Society of Gastroenterology and current Treasurer of the Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology. He is an elected member of Academia Europaea.
Faculty of Science
Nicolas DAUPHAS has been named Professor, Chair of Cosmochemistry.
Dauphas is a distinguished planetary scientist and geochemist, internationally recognised for his pioneering contributions to isotopic geochemistry and cosmochemistry. Prior to joining the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at HKU, Dauphas was the Louis Block Professor at the University of Chicago and the Enrico Fermi Institute where he founded the Origins Laboratory.
His research spans stable and radiogenic isotopic variations, noble gas and nitrogen isotopic geochemistry, experimental cosmochemistry, and first-principles modelling of Earth and planetary processes. Dauphas has made foundational contributions to understanding the origin of Earth’s atmosphere, the nature of planetary building blocks, and the biogeochemical cycling of iron across geological time. He has played a crucial role in high-profile NASA and international space missions, advancing our understanding of planetary formation, evolution, and the origin of solar system materials through innovative mass-spectrometry, synchrotron, and modeling studies.
Among his numerous accolades are election to the National Academy of Sciences, the Packard fellowship, the European Association of Geochemistry’s F.G. Houtermans Award, the American Geophysical Union’s James B. Macelwane Medal, and the Meteoritical Society’s Nier Prize.
Xuechen LI has been named Professor, Chair of Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Li is Morningside Professor in Chemical Biology, Professor in the Department of Chemistry, and Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) in the Faculty of Science.
Li specialises in chemical biology and medicinal chemistry of biomolecules, with research focusing on glycosylation, carbohydrate chemistry, protein chemistry, and their therapeutic applications. He has pioneered innovative synthetic methods to precisely synthesize and modify peptides, proteins, and glycans, enabling new understanding of biomolecular functions and the development of novel synthetic biologics. In particular, Serine/Threonine ligation developed from his group at HKU is considered as a paradigm-shifting technology for chemical protein synthesis. His laboratory’s work has led to over 160 publications and 20 patents, with some peptide drugs advancing to clinical trials.
He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Contribution Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry from the Chinese Chemical Society, the Cathay Award from the Chinese Peptide Society, the Rao Makineni Lectureship Award from the American Peptide Society, a Croucher Senior Research Fellowship and RGC Senior Research Fellow.
Shunqing SHEN has been named Professor, Chair of Condensed Matter Physics.
Shen is a Professor in the Department of Physics at HKU. His research interests encompass topological phases and quantum transport in topological quantum materials, contributing significant theoretical and computational advances in these fields.
With over 200 papers in top physics journals, Shen is an expert in condensed matter physics, specialising in theory of topological insulator, novel quantum phases, quantum transport, quantum magnetism, and orbital physics in transition metal oxides. He is noted for proposing the topological Anderson insulator, half quantized Hall effect, theory of weak localization and antilocalization, resonant spin Hall effect, and the theory of phase separation in colossal magnetoresistive (CMR) materials. Additionally, Shen proved the existence of antiferromagnetic long-range order and off-diagonal long-range order in itinerant electron systems.
Shen has received the Outstanding Researcher Award from the University of Hong Kong and was awarded the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship as well as the Humboldt Research Fellowship of Germany.
Yang WANG has been named Professor, Chair of Mathematics, Computing and Data Science.
Wang joined HKU as Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Institutional Advancement) in 2025. Prior to this, Wang held key leadership roles at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, including Head of the Department of Mathematics, Dean of the School of Science, and Vice-President for Institutional Advancement. He was Department Chair of Mathematics at Michigan State University and served as a program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States.
Wang is an internationally respected mathematician with interdisciplinary research interests including applied harmonic analysis, machine learning, tiling, fractal geometry, and blockchain. He has authored more than 150 academic publications spanning pure mathematics and interdisciplinary applications. His impactful contributions include founding the HKUST Big Data Institute and launching a successful Master of Science degree in Big Data Technology, fostering big data science professionals in Hong Kong.
In recent years, Wang, as the Chief Scientist of the Institute of Web 3.0 Hong Kong, has played a pivotal role in advancing Hong Kong’s Web3 technology ecosystem and driving innovations in AI education.
Bing ZHANG has been named Professor, Chair of Astrophysics.
Zhang is Global STEM Scholar in the Department of Physics at HKU and the Founding Director of the Nevada Center for Astrophysics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is consistently ranked among the leading astronomers worldwide for his scholarly impact, reflecting decades of profound contributions to astrophysics and space science.
Zhang is a theoretical astrophysicist specialising in high-energy astrophysics, particularly gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), fast radio bursts (FRBs), and multi-messenger astrophysics. He served as the principal investigator on the FAST FRB Key Science Project during 2020-2025 and is serving in leadership roles for the Einstein Probe and the Chinese-French Space-based Multi-band Astronomical Variable Object Monitor (SVOM) mission. Zhang’s research has revolutionised our understanding of black holes, neutron stars, and astrophysical jets, with foundational models explaining emission properties and central engines of GRBs and FRBs.
He has published more than 600 refereed papers including over 30 in Nature, Science and associated journals, and authored a comprehensive textbook, The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts. His work has garnered top honours, including the Nevada Regents’ Researcher Award, Fellow of the American Physical Society, the prestigious Bruno Rossi Prize, and recognition from Science and Nature for multiple breakthrough discoveries.
Faculty of Social Sciences
Tarani CHANDOLA has been named Professor, Chair of Medical Sociology.
Chandola is Head of the Department of Sociology and Director of the Methods Hub and the Social Science Research Centre in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Prior to joining HKU in 2021, Chandola served as Head of the Department of Social Statistics at the University of Manchester.
His research focuses on the social determinants of health, particularly health inequalities, psychosocial stressors, ageing, and work-related health outcomes. Chandola employs longitudinal cohort studies to understand biomarkers related to chronic stress, resilience, social isolation, and the effects of poor working conditions on health. His work has provided significant insights into the pathways linking social environments and health disparities. His prolific scholarship and policy engagement have guided social epidemiology research and informed public health strategies internationally.
Chandola has held editorial responsibilities, including serving as editor-in-chief of Sociology, the flagship journal of the British Sociological Association, and currently serves on international advisory boards of leading journals in medical sociology. He is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
For a full list of HKU’s Chair Professors, please visit this page.
