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Prof. Alejandro CARNICER LOMBARTE has joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in January 2026. He is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Cambridge Bioelectronics Laboratory led by Prof. George Malliaras. He holds a PhD in Clinical Neurosciences from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Neuroscience from University College London, and a BEng in Engineering and BA in Natural Sciences from the Open University and the University of Cambridge, respectively.

Prof. Carnicer Lombarte works at the interface between engineering and neuroscience. His research focuses on the development of implantable technologies to interface with the nervous system, with a focus on peripheral nerves, to restore function in conditions such as spinal cord injury. Prof. Carnicer Lombarte has authored over 36 peer-reviewed articles, including publications in prestigious journals such as Nature Communications, Nature Materials, Science Advances, and Advanced Materials. His research and academic trajectory have been recognised by awards such as the University of Cambridge Borysiewicz Interdisciplinary Fellowship and the Institution of Engineering and Technology 2023 J.A Lodge Award.

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Prof. Alvin Hoi-Chun HUNG has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the School of Law in 2025. He holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford, an LLM from the London School of Economics, and an LLB from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He practiced as a solicitor in Hong Kong and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National University’s College of Law.

Prof. Hung research explores the intersection of law, emerging technologies, and societal values, focusing on blockchain, AI, and their implications on property, employment, and organisations. His work integrates comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to legal analysis, exploring how legal frameworks for technology differ across societies and reflect underlying ideologies and power structures. He also explores private law and the cultural aspects of legal systems, particularly in Asia-Pacific contexts. Prof. Hung has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications, with his work featured in leading journals such as Big Data & Society, Asian Journal of Comparative Law, Law and Humanities, and Work, Employment & Society.

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Prof. Bo SHEN has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in December 2024. He received his Bachelor Degree from Nankai University in China and his PhD from the Brown University in the U.S. From 2019 to 2024, Prof. Shen was a postdoctoral scholar at the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University, where he focused on “materials genome” studies to explore the Megalibraries of nanomaterials for applications in electrocatalysis and permanent magnets.

Prof. Shen’s research centers on developing combinatorial high-throughput approaches, including nanolithography, screening, modeling, and machine learning, to accelerate materials discovery for applications in clean energy and environmental remediation. He has authored 27 peer-reviewed papers with over 2,700 citations and an H-index of 19 (Google Scholar). His work has appeared in prestigious journals such as Nature Synthesis, Nature Communications, and PNAS. He is the recipient of the International Institute for Nanotechnology Outstanding Research Award. Beyond his university work, he served as a mentor for the Nanotechnology Research and Innovation Bootcamp of the African Materials Research Society.

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Prof. Changhong LINGHU has joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as a Presidential Assistant Professor in September 2025. He has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, working with Prof. Huajian Gao and Prof. K. Jimmy Hsia since June 2023. He received his Ph.D. from NTU in 2023, and his M.S. and B.E. in Mechanics from Zhejiang University in 2020 and 2017, respectively.

He works at the interdisciplinary frontiers of mechanics, materials, robotics, and engineering, focusing on Smart Interfacial Science and Engineering (contact, adhesion, friction, etc.). His research spans fundamental mechanics, additive manufacturing, collaborative/climbing robots, perching aerial vehicles, flexible/wearable devices, biomedical adhesives, and mechanical metamaterials. So far, he has published over 32 SCI papers in journals such as JMPS, PNAS, NSR, Sci. Adv., Nat. Commun., IJSS, and EML. He serves as the Youth Editorial Board Member for six journals, including IJSNM, SmartBot, and Exploration, and as the reviewer for over 14 SCI journals, including Sci. Adv., Adv. Funct. Mater., JMPS, and EML. He has mentored/co-supervised over 80 students, with 56 pursuing graduate studies at top universities like Stanford, MIT, Yale, and Cambridge.

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Prof. Christy HUNG earned her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Cambridge after completing her undergraduate studies in Biochemistry at the University of Hong Kong. She joined University College London in 2019 after receiving a Race Against Dementia Fellowship and subsequently established her independent research laboratory with the support of an Alzheimer’s Research UK Senior Fellowship.

In 2024, Prof. Hung joined the Department of Neuroscience as an associate professor under the Presidential Assistant Professors Scheme. Her research focuses on diseases of the nervous system, particularly Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. She aims to translate her findings into better diagnostics and new therapeutic targets. Beyond her research, Prof. Hung is passionate about public engagement and promoting inclusivity and diversity in science.

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Prof. Di JIN has joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a minor in Economics from MIT, graduating with Phi Beta Kappa honors. She completed her Master’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley, with a full departmental scholarship, and received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge under the Winton Program for the Physics of Sustainability Scholarship. 

From 2018 to 2025, Prof. Jin was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where she investigated the molecular mechanisms of cartilage lubrication and the behavior of confined liquids using surface force balance experiments and molecular dynamics simulations. Her recent work integrates artificial intelligence to accelerate the design of functional biomaterials. She has published as first or co-first author in Nature Materials, PNAS, and Biophysical Journal, and contributes to the scientific community as a reviewer for PNAS, Small, Soft Matter, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, and others. 

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Prof. Elliott CHIU has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences in October 2024. He received his BS and MS from Drexel University, DVM and PhD from Colorado State University, and completed his residency in anatomic pathology with a focus on zoo and wildlife pathology through a partnership between the University of California, Davis and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

Prof. Chiu’s research focuses on the characterization of viral outbreaks in wild and domestic felids with a concentration on feline leukemia virus. In particular, his research teases out the complex interactions between endogenous retroviruses and their infectious exogenous counterparts. He has authored over 15 peer-reviewed papers. He has been recognized for his contributions to research in the field of veterinary medicine having received the Davis-Thompson Foundation’s Pathology Trainee and Scholarship Award, Wildlife Disease Association Graduate Student Research Recognition Award, and Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Graduate Award Honorable Mention.

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Prof. Haowei XU has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics in 2025. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Physics from Peking University and his Ph.D. in Quantum Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He subsequently worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT from 2023 to 2025.

Prof. Xu’s research lies at the intersection of condensed matter physics, computational materials science, and quantum engineering. His work is particularly focused on developing innovative quantum control strategies based on nonlinear light-matter interactions. These efforts span fundamental theory, large-scale numerical simulations, and applications in emerging quantum technologies. He has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals such as Physical Review Letters and Nature Communications. His outstanding doctoral research has earned him honours like the MathWorks Fellowship and the Del Favero Thesis Prize from MIT.

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Prof. Jianyuan GUO has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences in June 2025. He received his BS and MS degrees from the School of EECS, Peking University, and his PhD from the School of Computer Science, University of Sydney.

Prof. Guo’s research focuses on developing efficient machine perception algorithms to enhance and augment human intelligence. Specifically, his work includes novel neural architectures in computer vision and natural language processing, compact large vision models, large language models, and efficient multimodal processing and understanding. He has published over 30 papers in top-tier AI conferences such as CVPR, ICCV, ICLR, ICML, and NeurIPS, with more than 13,000 citations (Google Scholar). He was recognized as one of Stanford's Top 2% Scientists and was awarded the 2022 Google PhD Fellowship for his outstanding research. Additionally, he serves as a member of the AAAI Student Committee, an Area Chair for ICLR, and a regular reviewer for top AI conferences and journals.

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Prof. Jiaqi LIU is a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. Before joining CityUHK in 2025, Prof. Liu served as a postdoctoral scholar in the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics at Northwestern University. She received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Pennsylvania in 2021 and obtained her B.S. in Materials Science from Fudan University in 2016. 

Her research focuses on leveraging functional materials design, advanced manufacturing, ultrasound technology, and bioengineering approaches to develop bioelectronic devices. These devices aim to measure biochemical and biophysical signals, provide target modulation, and program soft robotic actuators to decipher biological systems and improve healthcare. Her first-author work has appeared in prestigious journals such as Science and PNAS. She has been selected as a Protostar by the weekly newsletter of Science magazine and has been awarded the Sidney J. Stein Prize and the Geoffrey Belton Graduate Fellowship by the University of Pennsylvania. 

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Prof. Jonathan HUI has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and the Department of Chinese and History in September 2024. He received his BA in English literature from the University of Durham and his MPhil and PhD in medieval European languages and literatures from the University of Cambridge. He subsequently worked as a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Hong Kong, taught in Singapore and returned to the University of Cambridge as a visiting researcher.

Prof. Hui has broad interests in historical fiction, comparative literature and folkloristics, and is particularly interested in the construction of the historical past in literary fiction. He is beginning work on a project studying the connections between the fiction of the iconic Hong Kong author Jin Yong and European literature. His research has received awards from the Folklore Society and the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

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Prof. Leon Y. XIAO has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the School of Creative Media in March 2025. Trained in English law and has been Called to the Bar of England and Wales, he holds a PhD in video game law, focusing on the regulation of loot boxes, gacha, and other gambling-like monetisation mechanics in video games that offer random rewards. Using empirical legal research, he assesses compliance with regulations across various countries and advises on improvements. He also conducts traditional, doctrinal legal research and psychology studies, including surveys and experiments. He is passionate about open science: he preregisters research methods, shares data, and even conducts registered reports (including likely the first one in the world in the legal discipline).

He actively advises on global policymaking and has testified before an Australian House Committee. His research has been referenced (twice!) in the House of Lords, cited by the US Federal Trade Commission, and various European regulators, influencing compliance actions by companies. His award-winning research has received worldwide coverage in over 670 media features by The Guardian, The BBC and The Times.

Recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 and a Berlingske Talent 100, Leon continues to impact video game policy advocacy.

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Prof. Mengze WANG has joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as a Presidential Assistant Professor in January 2026. He has been a Postdoctoral Researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Prof. Themistoklis Sapsis and Prof. Raffaele Ferrari since 2023.  He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University (2022) and B.Sc. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Peking University (2016).

His research focuses on developing data assimilation and machine learning methods for high-dimensional dynamical systems, with particular emphasis on applications in aerospace engineering and geophysical flows. He has published over 10 articles on top journals in fluid mechanics and computational physics, and one book chapter. His honors include the Corrsin-Kovasznay Outstanding Paper Award and Andrea Prosperetti Travel Award from Johns Hopkins University.

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Dr. Peipei CHEN will join the School of Energy and Environment at City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in May 2026. She received her PhD from the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at University College London in 2024 and subsequently worked as a Research Associate in the Energy Policy Research Group at the University of Cambridge.

Dr. Chen’s research focuses on low-carbon technology deployment, industrial decarbonization pathways, and social impacts of energy transitions. She evaluates the feasibility and adoption potential of key low-carbon technologies and develops decarbonization strategies for hard-to-abate industries, supported by integrated assessments of technology evolution and capacity-expansion pathways. She has authored around 20 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Climate Change, and Nature Communications, with several of her findings cited in United Nations reports. She also serves as a young editorial board member for Technology Review for Carbon Neutrality and is a regular peer reviewer for leading academic journals.

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Prof. Qian-Cheng WANG has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering in June 2025. He received his PhD in Land Economy and his MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies from the University of Cambridge, having previously obtained a First-Class Bachelor’s degree in Building Engineering and Management from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Prof. Wang’s research harnesses digital twin technology to enhance decision-making in smart cities, with a particular focus on dynamic urban modelling and the innovative integration of heterogeneous data for sustainable development. He has led and contributed to leading research projects, published over 30 peer-reviewed articles garnering more than 1,000 citations, and received upwards of 20 academic honours and awards. In addition to his research activities, he serves as an associate editor of Environment and Behavior, sits on the junior editorial board of Computational Urban Science, and acts as a peer reviewer for over 30 international journals.

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Prof. Qihong LU has joined the Department of Neuroscience at City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in January 2026. In 2023, he obtained his PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Princeton University, advised by Kenneth A. Norman and Uri Hasson. He then worked as an Alan Kanzer Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University, where he was advised by Daphna Shohamy and Stefano Fusi.

His team will use artificial neural networks as model organisms to understand computational principles of learning and memory in humans, and then use behavioral and neuroimaging experiments to test model predictions. Reverse-engineering human memory in artificial neural network models. can lead to insights into the cognitive architecture the brain employs and the statistical structure of the environment in which we live, which has implications in both clinical settings and NeuroAI.

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Prof. Tsung Kei (Peter) WONG will join City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese and History in August 2025 and has been elected as Research Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He received his PhD from Princeton University under the supervision of Professors Martin Kern and Anthony Grafton. His research explores the interaction between textual culture, classical scholarship, historiography, poetry, philosophy, and political culture in ancient China. 

Prof. Wong is currently finishing a book manuscript entitled The Big Book Theory: The Unlikely Rise of Long Books and Its Consequences in Ancient China, which has been recognized with the Charlotte Elizabeth Procter Fellowship from Princeton and the 2024 Young Scholar Award from China Times Cultural Foundation. His writings have appeared or are forthcoming in Journal of Asian Studies, Early China, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Oxford Handbook of Daoism, and Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Lüshi Chunqiu. His most recent works include "Inventing the Spring and Autumn Period: How Numerology Shaped History and Historiography in Ancient China" and “The Soundscape of the Huainanzi: Poetry, Performance, Philosophy, and Praxis in Early China.” 

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Prof. Xing LI has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry in May 2024. He received his BS from Nanyang Technological University and PhD from National University of Singapore (NUS). From 2018 to 2021, Prof. Li was a postdoctoral scholar at the Division of Chemistry, NUS, where he conducted interdisciplinary research on developing covalent organic frameworks (COFs) for energy storage applications. From 2021 to 2024, he was a part of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, where his research centered on addressing climate change challenges by designing redox-tunable materials for electrochemical carbon capture.

Prof. Li's research focuses on developing synthetic toolkits for molecule-defined nanoporous materials, with applications spanning energy storage and carbon neutralization. His areas of focus include reticular chemistry, electrosynthesis, metal-gas batteries, and carbon capture. He has authored over 40 peer-reviewed papers with more than 3000 citations and an H-index of 29 (Google Scholar). His work has appeared in prestigious journals such as Nature Chemistry, Nature Synthesis, and Nature Energy.

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Prof. Ye WEI has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Data Science in January 2025. He earned his Bachelor's degree from the University of Twente in the Netherlands and his PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials and Intelligent Systems in Germany from 2018 to 2021. Prof. Wei was a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Information Science at Tsinghua University from 2021 to 2023. He then continued his postdoctoral research at the School of Bioengineering at EPFL from 2023 to 2024, where he focused on developing data-driven tools for biological applications.

Prof. Wei's research centers on designing data-driven methodologies to derive optimal solutions from limited datasets. His work addresses high-dimensional, nonlinear challenges in complex real-world systems, with a particular emphasis on applications such as materials discovery and therapeutic antibody design. His research has been featured in prestigious journals, including Science and Nature Communications, and has received wide media coverage in outlets such as MIT Technology Review and Chemistry World.

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Prof. Yu SONG has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in July 2024. He received his BS from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and PhD from Peking University. From 2021 to 2024, Prof. Song was a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Medical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, where he conducted interdisciplinary research at the intersection of engineering and biomedicine.

Prof. Song's research focuses on developing bioelectronic devices through fundamental studies and practical biomedical applications. His areas of focus include skin-interfaced multimodal biosensors, battery-free wearable bioelectronics, additive manufacturing innovation, AI-powered health assessment, and closed-loop personalized medicine. Prof. Song has authored over 70 peer-reviewed papers with more than 6,300 citations and an H-index of 37 (Google Scholar). His work has appeared in prestigious journals such as Nature Biotechnology, Nature Electronics, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Science Robotics, and Science Advances. Prof. Song is the recipient of several honors including the Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Chinese Institute of Electronics and recognition as a World's Top 2% Scientist by Stanford University and Elsevier Scopus.

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Prof. Yue ZHU has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering in February 2025. He received his B.Eng. and M.Sc. degrees from Zhejiang University, followed by a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London, where he also served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. He is also engaged by the UK National Energy System Operator (NESO) as an external research member to provide specialized technical support.

Prof. Zhu’s research focuses on stability, dynamics, and control of large-scale inverter-dominated power systems, addressing critical challenges including system oscillations, data-driven impedance identification, and system strength assessment for connection of new inverter-based resources. He has authored over 10 journal papers in top-tier IEEE Transactions, and contributed to the 2024 CIGRE Green Book. Prof. Zhu is dedicated to translating his research work into real-world applications through close collaboration with industry partners. He serves as the primary researcher on two industrial projects funded by NESO, and the Co-Investigator on a Strategic Innovation Fund project in partnership with National Physical Laboratory and Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks Transmission.

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Prof. Zhisong ZHANG has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science in August 2025. He holds a BS and MS in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a PhD from the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. His doctoral research focused on advancing natural language processing (NLP) systems, particularly in data-limited scenarios, where his work aimed to reduce the need for labor-intensive manual data labeling while improving task performance. 

Prof. Zhang's current research focuses on natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs), with particular interests in long-context language modeling, LLM-based agent systems, and understanding the underlying mechanisms of language models. With over 30 peer-reviewed publications, his work has been published in top-tier NLP conferences such as ACL and EMNLP. He is also an active contributor to the academic community, serving as a program committee member for major AI/ML and NLP conferences, including ACL, EMNLP, ICLR, NeurIPS and ICML. 

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Prof. Ziye MA has joined City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences in August 2024. He holds a B.A.Sc in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto and Ph.D from the University of California, Berkeley. During his doctoral studies from 2019 to 2024 at UC Berkeley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Prof. MA conducted research under the guidance of Professor Somayeh Sojoudi, focusing on advancing theoretical machine learning.

Prof. Ma’s research focuses on global guarantees of non-convex optimization problems, low-rank matrix problems, and theoretical underpinnings of robustness and generalization in machine learning. His areas of focus include machine learning, mathematical optimization, and statistics. Prof. Ma has authored over 10 peer-reviewed papers, most of which published in top-tier AI/ML conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, AISTATS, and AAAI. Several of these papers have been recognized as top papers and selected for oral presentations. He also serves as regular reviewers at top ML venues and has received honours like Berkeley’s outstanding graduate student instructor.