The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) today announced the appointment of Prof Lionel Ni as Dean of HKUST Fok Ying Tung Graduate School (FYTGS), with effect from 1 March 2011.
Prof Ni has been acting Dean of FYTGS since July 2010. Concurrently he also holds the academic position as Chair Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and the administrative position of Special Assistant to the President.
Professor Ni joined HKUST in 2002 as Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science (now Department of Computer Science and Engineering). He was the Director of the Digital Life Research Center at FYTGS from 2006 to 2010, and was Senior Advisor to the Dean of FYTGS from 2008 to 2010 before becoming the School's Acting Dean.
Prof Joseph Hun-wei Lee, Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies, said, "With the construction of the Nansha campus well in progress, the FYTGS is poised for consolidating and extending its base and influence on research and education on the Mainland, and to contribute to technology and economic development of Guangdong and Hong Kong. With his outstanding scholarship, accomplished research achievements, broad and well-established connections on the Mainland and intimate involvement with FYTGS, Professor Ni is well-positioned and ready to take the Graduate School to its next level of success."
Professor Ni received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1980. Prior to coming to HKUST, Professor Ni was a full Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University where he stayed from 1981 to 2002.
Prof Ni was also the co-founder and CEO of CC&T Technologies, Inc., Michigan and a program director at the US National Science Foundation. A fellow of IEEE and a highly cited researcher, Prof Ni has graduated 40 PhD students. He is the chief scientist of the Ministry of Science and Technology 973 Program on wireless sensor networks. Prof Lionel Ni is also Director of the Ministry of Education / Microsoft Research Asia IT Key Laboratory at HKUST.
He received, among others, the esteemed Overseas Outstanding Contribution Award from China Computer Federation in 2009 and is honored as "National-level Talent" of Shenzhen Municipality from March 2009 to February 2014. Late last year, Prof Ni and his research team won a First Class Award in Natural Sciences in the Awards for Research Excellence presented by the Ministry of Education.
Prof Ni's research interests include supercomputing, computer networking, distributed systems, mobile computing, sensor networks, extra-large scale storage systems, and data mining.
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Ross Lai
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Email: kityip@ust.hk
