The Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences (JCC) extends its warmest congratulations to Professor Santiago Alonso Sousa from the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences (VCS) on receiving the CityUHK Teaching Excellence Award for Digital Learning 2025/26. Presented to academic staff who excel in utilising digital tools to enhance students' learning experiences, this honour recognises his contributions to digitally transformed veterinary education and his innovative work on "Learning with AI: Where Clinical Reasoning Meets Digital Confidence."
Professor Alonso Sousa exemplifies innovative, student-centred, and research-informed teaching. Through the AI-Enhanced learning and assessment framework that he developed, namely the Structured AI-Supported Assessment in 2024/25 and Digital Transformation: Supervised and Structured AI-Enhanced Learning in 2025/26, Professor Alonso Sousa has redesigned courses to integrate AI-supported assessment and data-driven teaching analytics. His approach has delivered measurable improvements in student performance and clinical reasoning, with over 90% positive feedback, while providing personalised formative feedback and enabling early identification of at-risk students needing additional support.
His teaching excellence has been recognised across institutional, regional, and international levels. He was previously honoured with a JCC Teaching Excellence Award in 2025 for his leadership in digital pedagogy, and his innovative work has earned several external accolades: the CUHK Educational Technology Innovation Award, the Best Oral Presentation Award (Research Project) at VetEd Asia 2025, and nominations for both the Times Higher Education Awards Asia 2024 and the QS Reimagine Education Awards 2024. As a Digital Learning Ambassador, Professor Alonso Sousa actively shares his teaching practices within CityUHK and across Hong Kong's higher-education sector, showcasing his use of AI and digital transformation. Internationally, he has presented at the VetEd Symposium and a WOAH Asia-Pacific Workshop on AI in Veterinary Education. His current initiatives, including the VetComm simulator and HealthOne translation software, continue to enhance hands-on training and advance digital learning at CityUHK. HealthOne has received patent protection and is currently collaborating with the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA), while VetComm is under patent application, reflecting the translational and innovative impact of these educational technologies.
We once again congratulate Professor Alonso Sousa on this well-deserved award and thank him for his continued dedication to innovation in veterinary education.