Professor Michael Ng Honoured as Dr. Elizabeth K.S. Law Endowed Professor in Data Science
The Faculty of Science at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) is proud to announce the appointment of Professor Ng Kwok Po, Michael as the Dr. Elizabeth K.S. Law Endowed Professor in Data Science. This prestigious position highlights Professor Ng’s dedication to advancing research and education in the rapidly evolving field of data science.
Professor Ng currently serves as the Dean of Science, Chair Professor in Mathematics, and Chair Professor in Data Science at HKBU. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Philosophy degrees in Mathematics from The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and obtained his Doctorate in Mathematics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He joined HKBU’s Department of Mathematics as a Professor in 2005 and was promoted to Chair Professor in Mathematics in 2015 and Chair Professor (Affiliate) of the Department of Computer Science in 2019. From 2014 to 2019, he served as Head of the Department of Mathematics. He later advanced his career at HKU, where he held the position of Chair Professor and Director of the Research Division of Mathematical and Statistical Science. Professor Ng also served as Chairperson of the HKU-TCL Joint Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Director of the Big Data Research Cluster. In August 2023, HKBU warmly welcomed Professor Ng back to the family.
Professor Ng’s research endeavours span scientific computing, numerical algebra, and imaging sciences, with applications in data science and bioinformatics. As an internationally acclaimed scholar, he has received numerous accolades for his accomplishments in the fields of computational and applied mathematics, machine learning, and data science. In 2017, he was elected as a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and awarded the 12th Feng Kang Prize of Scientific Computing for his fundamental contributions to algorithms for structured linear systems and mathematical and computational methods in image processing. Professor Ng ranks among the top 1% of scholars in three subject fields: Mathematics, Computer Science, and Engineering, based on Essential Science Indicators. He was also recognised as one of the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists by Stanford University, and ranked #4 among the Best Mathematics Scientists in China and #58 among the Best Computer Science Scientists in China in the 3rd edition of Research.com.
Professor Ng has made significant contributions to the advancement and promotion of mathematics globally. He held the position of Vice-President of the Hong Kong Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics and served as a Council Member of the China Society for Computational Mathematics. He was the Secretary of the Hong Kong Mathematical Society from 1998 to 2006 and served as that for the East Asia section of SIAM from 2005 to 2009. He was the host and Co-Chair of the 2014 SIAM Conference on Imaging Science at HKBU, the first time the event was held outside the USA and Europe, attracting several hundred researchers from overseas and Mainland China. The SIAM Conference on Applied Linear Algebra was held on campus again in 2018, further reinforcing the University’s commitment to scholarly exchange. Professor Ng also served as an organising committee member for the SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science in 2022.
Professor Ng’s contributions to the community extend well beyond his academic achievements. He has served as a nominator for prestigious awards such as the Kyoto Prize, the Future Science Prize, the VinFuture Prize and the Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award. He also served on a prize jury of the Biennial French-German Mathematics in Imaging and as a contest committee member for the Feng Kang Prize, the ICIAM Maxwell Prize and the Early Career Data Mining Researcher Award. From 2019 to 2021, he was a member of the SIAM Major Award Committee.
In addition, Professor Ng is actively involved in international applied mathematics academic activities. He has served on the editorial boards of over 15 journals, including the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics (Principal Editor), Software Impacts (Editor-in-Chief), SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences, Journal of Scientific Computing, Numerical Linear Algebra with Applications, and East Asian Journal on Applied Mathematics. He has delivered more than 150 invited talks locally and internationally, including plenary talks at the International Linear Algebra Society Conference, Foundations of Computational Mathematics, IEEE Conferences, the SIAM Conference on Imaging Science, the SIAM Conference on Applied Linear Algebra and the SIAM Conference Annual Meeting.
“Being appointed as the Dr. Elizabeth K.S. Law Endowed Professor in Data Science is both an honour and a responsibility, I look forward to enhancing our research capabilities and creating opportunities for the faculty and students to engage with the challenges and opportunities that data science presents,” said Professor Ng.
As the Faculty of Science looks to the future with Professor Ng at the helm, there is great anticipation for the innovative research and educational initiatives that will emerge under his leadership, benefiting both the academic community and society at large.