Academic Unit

Dr. Bo SHEN will join City University of Hong Kong as a Presidential Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in January 2025. 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, Dr. 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.

Dr. 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.

Academic Unit

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.

Academic Unit

Dr. Elliott CHIU will join 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.

Dr. 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.

Academic Unit

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.

Academic Unit

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.

Academic Unit

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.

Academic Unit

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.