News & Stories

Students attending the classes of Prof. Julian GROVES of the Division of Social Science understand that switching off and putting away their electronic devices is mandatory—even the use of laptops or tablets for note-taking are discouraged—because Prof. Groves reckons that while the internet can be an important resource for educators, “mobile devices can be a terrible distraction to classroom learning”. The students might not like it at first, but they rarely complain about it because they are offered “something equally compelling in return” which involves many interactive activities such as surveys, quizzes, simulations, and discussions to keep them engaged.

A research team led by scientists from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) unveiled a first-in-kind study of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and its role in the rise and fall of airborne sulfates in hazy air pollution, offering policymakers new insights into ways to tackle smoggy weather.  Dense, hazy fog episodes characterized by relatively high humidity, low visibility and extremely high PM2.5 have been a headache to many megacities including those in Mainland China. Among pollutants that are less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5), airborne sulfate is one of the most common components of hazy air pollution formed atmospherically via the oxidation of sulphur dioxide (SO2).  

HKUST has been committed to enrolling students from around the world to foster campus diversity and advance internationalization. To continue broadening the non-local student mix, the University introduced a “Counselor Fly-in” program in 2018 to let high school counselors from Central Asia and Middle East have a deeper understanding of what opportunities HKUST can offer to their students. The program continued in March 2019 with some 30 high school counselors from nine Western European countries joining. Here we meet two students from Kazakhstan and Turkey who share with us what brought them to Hong Kong. Fourth-year Biotechnology and Business student Kamila ABDRASSILOVA from Kazakhstan witnessed the increasing number of students from her home country – when she started, there were only seven and now the number has doubled to 14.

An international research team led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has demonstrated that cooling by internal waves could potentially create thermal refuges for coral reefs, and may help prevent and more accurate predict locations of coral bleaching. Coral reefs around the world are threatened by pan-tropical bleaching events caused by rising seawater temperatures linked to ongoing climate change and extreme conditions like El Niño.  However, bleaching patterns can be hard to predict, especially in deeper water.  Currently, most bleaching predictions are based on surface estimates of seawater temperatures gathered with satellites.  While satellite observations are important for understanding large-scale patterns and studying remote locations, they are only able to detect temperatures at the very surface of the ocean and provide averages over relatively large scales.

Prof. ZHAO Tianshou, Cheong Ying Chan Professor of Engineering and Environment, Chair Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Director of Energy Institute at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has been elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) – bringing the total number of CAS members at HKUST to five. CAS membership is the highest academic recognition conferred by the Chinese government for science and technology research achievements. Only scientists who have made significant contributions to the advancement of science can be nominated, and they require the support of more than two third of the members from their own division in order to be elected.  Among the 64 members and 20 Foreign members elected for 2019, Prof. Zhao is the only academic chosen from Hong Kong under the Technological Sciences division, for his achievements in engineering thermos-physics and clean energy production.

HKUST became the first Hong Kong team to win in sports dance category of Intelligent Robot Contest in Seoul.

Video game enthusiast Wei Lili has turned her childhood interest into cutting-edge research that sets to produce reliable high-quality software for mobile phone users.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) received a HK$40 million donation from Seal of Love Charitable Foundation (Foundation).  The gift is set to empower HKUST students in solving real-world problems with innovative thinking and technology know-how, and to deliver social impact with tangible solutions in resource-limited communities. The generous gift from the Foundation – a charitable organization dedicated to helping others with projects mostly focused on supporting education and the underprivileged in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia – will be used to set up an endowment fund called the “Seal of Love Foundation Student Innovative Service Fund” (Fund).  In appreciation of the Foundation’s benevolent support, the University has named a wing of its semi-circular Academic Building “Seal of Love Charitable Foundation Wing”.