AC3 Topping-out Ceremony
The Academic 3 (AC3) Topping-out Ceremony on 7 March marks an important milestone in the construction project. Upon completion, AC3 will enhance the overall student learning experience by providing an additional 20,500 square metres of space for academic and administrative purposes.

Sustainability talk
Climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies. Professor Tim Flannery, Chief Commissioner of the Australian Climate Commission and author of the best-selling book The Weather Makers, will discuss the role universities and academics can play in improving understanding, developing solutions and influencing government and business policy. The talk is a Hong Kong Sustainable Campus Consortium event, and will take place on 21 March at CityU.

President's lecture series
Professor Lu Jian, Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Dean of the College of Science and Engineering, will deliver a lecture in the President's Lecture Series on 19 April. His talk is titled "Achieving high strength and high ductility nanomaterials: concept, properties and applications". Professor Lu is a renowned expert in advanced structural materials and solid mechanics.

CityU Distinguished Lecture Series
Professor Robert H Austin, Professor of Physics at Princeton University, will deliver a talk titled "Why do organisms develop resistance to drugs? A physics perspective," at the City University Distinguished Lecture on 21 March. He will explain some of the evolutionary dynamics that underpin the apparent arms race that we seem to have entered into against organisms that can harm us. Professor Austin has been based at Princeton University for more than 30 years where he has undertaken research into protein dynamics; energy transport in biomolecules; DNA-protein interactions and topology; applications of nano/microlithography to biology; among many other areas of experimental and biological physics.

University research lecture
Professor Roland Winston, Professor at the University of California at Merced, US, and Director of the California Advanced Solar Technologies Institute, will give a talk titled "The UC Solar Institute-Research Collaboration for a Solar Energy Future" on 26 March at a lecture co-organised by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice-President (Research and Technology).

Innovative art installation
Artists and scientists at CityU have developed an animated 3D experience that allows visitors to experience in virtual reality the magnificent Buddhist wall paintings inside the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang in northwest China. Dr Norman Leung Nai-pang, Pro-Chancellor of CityU, and Professor Arthur Ellis, Provost, will officiate at the opening ceremony for a work of art titled "Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottoes" on 16 March.

Kudos
Professor Paul Lam Kwan-sing, Vice President (Student Affairs) and Chair Professor of Biology, and Dr Wallace Tang Kit-sang, Associate Professor of the Department of Electronic Engineering, received the 2011 Second Class Award in the Natural Science category at the Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Awards (Science and Technology) from the Ministry of Education. Professor Lam won the award with his project title "Geochemical characteristics of per-fluorinated compounds and risk assessment of southeast coastal waters in China". Dr Tang's winning project is "Modeling and optimal control hyperchaotic nonlinear system and its application".

Students from the Department of Computer Studies (CS) have won the Champion University Award in the IBM Inter-University Programming Contest 2012 for the second time in three years. Altogether 15 CS students, competing in five teams, scored the most points among participating universities from Hong Kong and Macau. In addition, a CS team won the 1st Runner Up in the same contest. The event challenges students to solve real-world problems with the latest relational database and web application development technology within a two-hour framework.

Jazz Zhou Jia, a Year 3 student in the School of Creative Media and a member of the school's Special Interest Group, won the Prize of Effort at the 13th DigiCon6 Awards with the work "Something about Melody".